New Guinea Research Unit Bulletin

Number 9

AN INTEGRATED APPROACH TO NUTRITION AND SOCIETY

THE CASE OF THE CHIMBU

Repo rt of a Symposium held at the

Thirty- Seventh Congres s

of the

Australian and New Zealand As sociation

for the Advancement of Sc ience

Canberra

2 0 - 24th January, 1 9 64

EDITOR OF THIS BULLETIN

E . H . HIPSLEY

January 1 9 66

Published by the New Guinea Rese arch Unit, Australian National University,

G.P . O . Box 4, Canberra, A. C.T . and P. O. Box 779, Port Moresby, Papua-New Guinea

AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY

Research School of Pac ific Studies

New Guinea Research Unit Committee

Sir John Crawford, Chairman, Director of the School

J . W. Davidson, Department of History and Government

H . C . Brookfield, Department of Geography

Ann Chowning, Department of Anthropology and Soc iology

E . K. Fisk, Department of Economic s

R . G . Crocombe, New Guinea Research Unit

January 1 9 6 6

Editor, New Guinea Research Unit Bulletin R. G. Crocombe

Editor ' s note

This number of the New Guinea Research Unit Bulletin is devoted to the proceedings of a symposium delivered at ANZAAS in January 1 9 64 . Papers were prepared for publica­tion in April 1 9 64 when it was antic ipated that another organiza­tion would print the proceedings . This proposal had to be abandoned, and in September 1 9 6 5 the manusc ript was put in the hands of the New Guinea Research Unit .

Though the papers have been subjected to only minor revision s ince April 1 9 64 , and some of the contemporary matter in them is already outdated, it was felt that they offer collectively both an interesting illustration of interdisciplinary discussion on the problems of an are a, and also an analys is of the process of colonial development and change as applied to one small part of New Guinea . The peanut - food project itself, which was the origin of the sympo sium, has been in abeyance for some time.

R . G. Crocombe

Preface

The papers comprising the Symposium entitled 'An Integrated Approach to Nutrition and Society - the Cas e of the Chimbu' were pre s ented to the Thirty- Seventh Congress of the Australian and New Zealand Association for the Advanc ement of Sc ienc e held in Canberra from 2 0th- 24th January, 1 9 64 .

The original idea of the Symposium was to try to make the specialist approaches of sc ienc e meaningful in terms of human needs . Different sc ientific discipline s accumulate different kinds of facts , and the techniques of collecting and handling them are complex and various. The resulting spec ialization may give us a profundity of knowledge about the s eparate aspects of a problem, but many que stions re quire a more general answer . It s eemed worthwhile for sc ientists in s everal different dis c ipline s to apply the relevant portions of their knowledge to a limited human problem.

The region of Chimbu is one of the most populous parts of New Guine a, so it is not surprising that during the last few years a good deal of sociological, agricultural, medical, and oth er res earch has centre s on the Chimbu people and their environment . Medic al findings showed that Chimbu toddlers would benefit from inc reased dietary prote in . Efforts to inc rease the c ropping and consumption of peanuts as a me ans to this end had already begun . It seeme d to us that an examina­tion of this dietary problem and of efforts being made to over­come it might lead to an apprec iation of the ramific ations of a comparative ly s imple change in a living habit and to a greater understanding of culture change if spec ialists in various fields could discus s the s e things jointly . People moving from a primitive form of soc iety into the complex modern wo rld are fac e d with many comparable problems which may also be usefully studied in this w ay .

The Organizing Committee welcomed the idea of an inter­disciplinary Symposium of this kind because it seems t o se rve the aims of such a Sc ienc e Congress ; the exchange of ideas and c irculation of knowledge among scientists who are thems elves spec ialist s and, e s sentially for this purpos e, the translation of spec ialists findings into terms which are intelligible to non­specialists .

Eben H . Hipsley Commonwealth Department of He alth

Marie Reay Australian Nat ional Univers ity

Contents

Chairman 's opening remarks

Part 1 . The people and the problem

Protein malnutrition and peanut foods in the

Page

1

Chimbu - K. V. Bailey 2

Goodbye to all that ? - Paula Brown 3 1

But where do we go from here ? - H . C . Brookfield 4 9

Nutrition and economic progress in the Chimbu -R . Shand 6 7

Part 2 . Practical prospects

<;ommunity development and the Chimbu -W. E . Tomasetti

Introduc ing pe anut butter into Chimbu infant diet - June Anne Ros s

Experienc es o f pe anut feeding in the Chimbu district - Noah Temgwe

Part 3 . Discus sion of problems uncovered

( i )

8 5

9 5

1 04

1 09

Tables

Table 1 . Average composition of New Guinea foods

Table 2 . Causes of death in Kundiawa hospital

Figures

Fig . 1 . Loc ation map . Part of Chimbu Divis ion of

Page

4

2 6

Eastern Highlands New Guinea Oppos ite p . 1

Fig . 2 .

Fig. 3 .

Fig . 4 .

Plate 1 .

Plate 2 .

Plate 3 .

Plate 4 .

Plate 5 .

Plate 6 .

Mean weights of infants

Map of the Mintima area

Patte rn of s ales in a Chimbu trade store

Plates

Kwashiorkor

Marasmus

A group talking outs ide a men ' s hous e

A group of women cook for a feast

Men digging ditches and spreading subsoil to prepare garden beds

Peanuts as part of a c eremonial distribution

( i i )

5

54

73

1 2

1 5

4 5

4 5

5 1

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Figure 1 . Location map .

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- Chimbu Division

Part of CHIMBU DIVISION EASTERN HIGHLANDS

NEW GUINEA

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Government Station

e Locality

Main Road Minor

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Part of Chimbu Division of Eastern Highlands New Guinea .

OPENING REMARKS

Chairman, Sir John Crawfo rd (Australian National University)

We have a very full day on a subj ect that may sound very particular since it deals with the problem of protein in the diet of the Chimbu people in New Guinea, ( s ee Fig . 1 ) , with particular refer enc e to the pe anut as a sourc e of prote in . But if you think the word 'peanut ' means a restricte d unimportant subj ect then you are in for a pleasant disappointment, because the problem of feeding pe anuts to young toddlers turns out to be one that raises the whole gamut of the mode of adjustment of a primitive society to new conditions .

1

Prote in malnutrition and peanut foods in the Chimbu

K. V. Bailey

( Fo rmerly Department of Health, Territory of Papua and New Guinea )

Protein malnutrition was first recognised as a major clinic al and public health problem in New Guinea by Ivinskis 1 , 2 at the Kundiawa hospital in the Chimbu Subdistrict of the E astern Highlands of New Guinea . It affected chiefly young children, and pregnant and lactating women .

Detailed studies were made in the Chimbu in 19 56 by Venkatachalam, 3 an expert Indian medic al nutritionist, and in various parts of New Guinea by Oomen and Malcolm, the South Pacific Commis s ion nutrit ionist s . 4 Thes e various studie s con­firme d that protein malnutrition was an important problem chiefly among infants and young children . Kwashiorkor and other forms of protein malnutrition were common in the High­lands generally, where the sweet potato ( Ipomoea bat atas ) is the staple food, and espec ially in the Chimbu, which is the mo st densely populated part of the Highlands . Malnutrition also occurs amongst children in some of the swampy coastal and in-land areas where sago is the staple food . 4 Various reports 5, 6 de al with the dietary picture and nutritional status in more detail .

At Kundiawa Ho spital, Venkatachalam found that in 19 54 - 56 malnutrition was responsible for 2 7 % of the deaths in children unde r 5 ye ars of age . In 19 6 1 - 6 2 it w as st ill respon­sible for 1 3 % of admiss ions in this age group . 7

Chimbu infants are normally relatively well nourished up to about 4 - 6 months, 3, 4, 8 but beyond this point the mothe r ' s milk supply is inadequate to meet the increasing protein ne eds . Too little supplementary food is given; it is begun too late (usually at about 8 - 1 0 months ) ; and i t is too low in protein con­tent . During the second year of life, calorie intakes usually become relatively adequate , but prote in intake s remain outstand­ingly low .

Conse quently there is a general retardation of growth,

2

chiefly from 4 to 24 months . This has be en shown not only in Chimbu, 3, 4 , 8 but also in the Western Highlands, 9 New Ire land, 10 the Trobriands and els ewhere . 11 This retardation is as severe as any in the world, being comparable to the retardation found in rural Javane se infants and of Congolese 8 ( Figure 2 ) . This figure shows the ave rage weight of Chimbu village infants for the first 2 years of life, compare d with various other population groups . The infants reared on Kundiawa station (their parents being Chimbus employed as dome stic servants or by administration, mission or private e stablishments ) gain weight distinctly faster than the village Chimbu infants . The improved performanc e of the Kundiawa infants is partly attributable to improve d diets bec ause of the rations ( inc luding ric e, wheatmeal and me at ) issued to the parents .

The ove rall incidenc e of severe malnutrition is about 3 % in the 0- 5 years age group in Chimbu. 7 ( The se are clas sified as kwashiorko r, t%; nutritional marasmus in toddlers over 6 months, 1 t%; nutritional marasmus in infants under 6 months, 1 % . )

If this figure were gene rally applicable in the Highlands, there would be some 4 , 500 c ases of frank malnutrition in an area s e rve d by about 30 hospitals ; i . e . about 3 new c ases per week in each hospital . An incidence of this orde r would of course be pre sent only relatively early in the public health programme ; later the inc idenc e should be reduc e d to at most one fifth of this, and already this is the situation in the more sophistic ated and acce s ­sible centre s .

The Chimbu region was selected for spec ial study bec ause it appears to be reaching the c ritic al point, where incre asing population and land pre ssure are produc ing nutritional conse quence s on a gre ater scale than elsewhe re in the Highlands . Doubtle s s, however, othe r areas will follow the Chimbu pattern if effective preventive measure s are not taken .

The e stimated incidence in Chimbu may be compared with a total incidence in the same age group of 2 . 7% found in South India, 1 2 6 % in Malaya, 1 3 and 0 - 21 % in various Uganda tribes . 14 The se figures are of course not strictly comparable, because the c riteria and standards of malnutrit ion are not identical . Neverthe ­less they indic ate that malnutrition is as much of a problem in parts of New Guine a as it is in parts of Asia and Africa . At the same time they confirm the general impre s sion, on a c asual visit

3

to a New Guinea village , that most of the children, as well as the adults , appear adequately nourishe d - or at least well fed, which is not quite the same thing .

Diets

Subs istenc e nutrition is the rule in mo st of rural New Guine a . It means that the people grow what they eat , and e at what they grow (or c atch in the fore st or s e a) . It need not mean poor nutrition, but often the diets are low in protein, espec ially animal prot ein . It also me ans that usually people find something to eat when they become hungry, rathe r than e ating (or ove re at ­ing!) t o antic ipate hunger, a s in affluent soc ietie s like our own . Undernutrition in the s ense c alling for "free dom from hunge r" efforts does sometime s occur in c e rtain loc alitie s ; ove rnutrition and "overweight" do not occur in rural populations .

Dietary surveys in many localities have shown very low protein intakes, and calorie intake s whose ade quacy is some ­time s doubtful . The main staple foodstuffs in New Guine a are : sweet potato ( Ipomoea batatas ), taro ( Coloc asia spp. ) , yam ( Dioscorea spp. ) , banana or plantain ( Musa paradisiaca ) and s ago (Metroxylon s agu ) . These are all e s s ent ially starchy foods . The ave rage c alorie and protein contents are shown in Table I, but there are hundreds of different varieties of each of the tuber spec ies, and they vary widely in prote in content . Yam and taro are generally better in protein content than sweet potato and banana . Sago is wo rse, being almost pure starch . Yam and taro supply slightly less protein pe r c alorie than English potatoes and rice .

Table I

Average composition of New Guinea foods

Moisture Protein Calories It em ( %) (%) (Kc al per 1 OOg)

Swe et Potato�:, 6 8 1 . 1 1 2 0 Taro�:' 7 0 2 . 4 1 30 Yam�:' 75 2. 5 130 Plantain>:< 7 5 1 . 1 1 30 Sago*�:< 1 7 0 . 1 350 Quoted as composition of raw edible portion of fresh foodstuff . Average values quoted for New Guine an foods analysed at the D. A. S. F. laboratories (Port Moresby)* or at the Institute of Anatomy (Canberra).**

4

13

12

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MEAN WEIGHTS OF INFANTS

AUSTRALIAN

- CHIMBU

·------· KUNDIAWA

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o------o MALAY JAVANESE

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6 8 10 12 14 16 18

AGE CMONTHS)

AUSTRALIAN

,--··KUNDIAWA /•·....... �fl"'

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_________ MALAY

CHIMBU _ ... ----------

--· JAVANESE

20 22 24

Figure 2 . Me an weights of infants

Throughout the Highlands region, which comprises 3 /4 million people ( almost one- half of the Territory ' s population), the sweet potato is quantitatively speaking almost the only food which counts . It supplie s about 9 0% of the c alories and 50% of the prote in consume d, not only by adults but also in the supplemen­tary diets of children from 1 ye ar onw ards . Adults usually e at 4 lbs, and toddlers 1 - 2 lbs daily .

Leafy gre ens and other vegetable s are e aten in consider­able quantity : often exc e eding 1 lb daily for adults , but only a

5

few ounces for toddlers . The supply is gre atly curtailed in the dry season. They provide large amounts of most minerals and vitamins and some protein, but are too bulky and too low in prote in to be regarde d as major protein- rich supplements .

Be ans are almost the only foods grown which are relatively rich in protein . Various type s are popular as food, but are a_so mainly s easonal . The most widespre ad native bean species are winged beans ( Psophoc arpus tetragonolobus ) and field beans ( Dolichos lablab ) . These are relatively good sourc e s of prote in ( 2 0 - 2 5% protein when sun- dri ed) . . Usually the fibrous pods are disc arded and the prote in- rich s eeds ( steamed under pre ssure with hot stones in a "mumu", 4, 6 along with the other foods ) are eaten . This custom ensures the maximum of prote in intake from a given bulk of food . Unfortunately beans are amongst the last foods to be introduced to infants , be ing dee me d "strong" foods .

Introduce d legumes are also popular : pe anuts , peas, lima be ans (Phaseolus lunatus ), kidney beans ( Phaseolus vulgaris ) , and soya beans . However, they are only grown in re stricted areas ( e spec ially soya ) and are not given in great quantity to infants .

Various nuts ( s uch a s Pandanus and Macara.nga species ) are also available in gre at quantities seasonally. The ir sporadic consumption in bulk contributes little to the prote in budget, s inc e protein supplements need to be e aten fre quently and regularly, even if in small amount s , to be effectively utilised . But some nuts are stored and eaten from time to t ime, and some could be suitably proc e s s e d ( like peanuts ) for infant feeding .

In the Chimbu Subdistrict, and gene rally throughout the Highlands, animal foods are eaten only rarely, comprising chiefly birds and other hunted game, and pigs . Pigs are eaten chiefly at fe stivals . The largest of these recur at 5- 1 0 ye ar intervals, with le s s e r one s every few we eks, months or years in re lation to family events (birth, puberty, mci.rriage, sicknes s, death ) or religious occ asions ( e specially Christmas ) . Othe r animal foods - insects , reptile s , rats , frogs - were said to be eaten occas ionally, but it se ems unlikely that they eve r contri­buted major quantities of protein, and nowadays, as sophistic a­t ion spreads, their consumption dwindles .

6

Although large numbers, even hundreds, of� are slaughte re d at the major festivals, the quantities of pork eaten per pe rson are surprisingly small . Eaten in this way, only sporadi­cally, it make s a negligible contribution to the overall protein picture; a regular small intake, along with other foods, would be much better . Toddlers are given very small quantities or none at all, and it is doubtful whether one should advoc ate it, bec ause of the very real danger of food poisoning from the fly­fe stooned fragments handed round .

There se ems to be little prospect of supplementing villagers ' diets regularly with other animal foods . Sheep do not adapt well to the humid conditions and fodder available . Poultry produce eggs at an economic level only when themselve s supplied with diets much better than those of the people - including cereals, protein- rich foods and preferably imported meatmeal or fishmeal . Cattle have better prospe cts, but beef is usually sold in urban markets in such developing soc ieties, rather than being consume d regularly by villagers . Domestic milk production under village conditions would re quire a high level of animal husbandry, and again, better foods ( inc luding animal prote in supplement s ) are probably needed for adequate productivity. Fish also require spec ial fee ding . Research on all the se possibilities is being actively promoted by the Departme nt of Agriculture, Stock and Fisherie s .

Infant fe eding in the Chimbu is entirely from the breast until after the e ruption of the first te eth, which occurs at about 8 months of age . The breast may be offered wheneve r the child cries . The baby is carrie d by the mother to the garden during her daily work there ( 2 - 4 hours ), or sometimes left at home with an older sibling or the grandmothe r, especially in wet weather . Fe eding seems to be usually every 2 - 3 hours by day and onc e or twice at night in younge r infants ; in olde r infants , every 3-4 hours, and in toddlers 3- 4 times daily (and sometime s onc e at night ) . The first solid food offere d is usually pit pit ( Setaria palmaefolia; the asparagu s - like inner stem ), when 2 or 4 teeth have erupted . Baked ( steamed) sweet potato is usually the next food introduce d, follow ed (usually beyond 12 months ) by other staples, le afy greens and be ans . Breastfeeding is usually con­tinued for 3- 4 years . The amount of breastmilk is about 500 g (one pint ) daily in the first year or so of life , thereafter gradually declining, but quite large amounts may still be available even in

7

the third and fourth years . The New Guine an mother is pos s ibly the finest lactater in the world .

In rec ent dietary studies in two Chimbu loc alitie s, 15 Whiteman carefully evaluated nutrient intakes in relation to e s­timated "ade quate allowances" ( c alculated from Hipsley 1 6 ), for all the individuals (based on their body weights ) in the familie s studied . The main conclusions were that :

( 1 ) c alorie int akes s e eme d to be reasonably adequate in adult males and in toddle rs, but low in infants aged 6 - 1 2 months and schoolage children, and pos sibly in adult women;

( 2 ) prote in intakes were about 50% of estimated requirements , at all age s . They are amongst the lowest in the world, but are not as bad as those in the c as s ava are as in Java, and the protein quality of the sweet potato is considerably better than that of cas sava .

Concurrent studies of nutritional status in various localities 1 7 indic ated that protein malnutrition is probably the cause of a steady decline in the body weight of New Guinean adults with inc reasing age, from the third dec ade onwards . Nutritional oedema ( swelling of the legs ) occurs frequently in lactating Chimbu women, 18 and espec ially in the Upper Chimbu valley . This reflects poor protein status, as found also in the c assava areas of Java . 1 9 - 2 1

De spite such evidenc e of protein deficiency in adults , it is fair to say that New Guine ans generally c ause the vis itor to comment on their fine physique, rather than on "how poor the ir diets must be " . This is partly the re sult of a vic ious proce s s of natural s election which eliminates some 50 - 80% of the warriors before they can line up for battle dre s s . It is partly the result of a gene rous system of rations for employees and their depen­dants , and the spoils from the master ' s dining table, which pre sent to the c asual visitor in a sophistic ated centre a much more sleek and blubbery pic ture of manhoo d than does the remote village . Howeve r, even in the remote village, the men e s ­pec ially are in obviously fine form. Both men and women can pe rform phys ic al fe ats and show sustained stamina which few of us could match .

8

Customs and beliefs

Attitude s towards food, health and disease are dealt with in greater detail and depth by Brown and Ross later in this symposium, and the following comments are merely added from the nutritionist ' s point of view .

In general, unsophistic ated New Guineans feel that they have enough to s atisfy their food wants, and to keep them in good he alth . There is little connection between food and health . The re is an almost infinite variety of food taboo s, prohibiting the us e of c ertain foods at c e rt ain se asons or, more particularly, for women during pregnancy or lactation . However, because the foods available are so generally low in protein, taboos are not often of much nutritional s ignificance . An exc eption is the pro­hibition of me at in pregnancy or lactat ion in Maprik region ( Sepik Rive r) 2 2 - but the taboo is not strictly adhe red to, and meat is e aten so infre quently anyway that the generalisation still stands . Another harmful taboo is the prohibit ion of fish for pregnant and lactating women in the Trobriands . 1 1 It is in any c ase im -po ssible to get concise and consistent views on most of the se taboo s .

Inevitably w e tend to convey the notion that our foodstuffs are better than the indigenous ones , and New Guineans are often all too re ady to believe so . As to vegetables this is usually not so . 2 3

Many o f the indigenous gre ens such a s Hibiscus, Amaranth and Rungia spec ies , contain more protein, iron and c alcium than our cabbage or lettuc e . Cereals as a class have a higher prote in content (per calorie ) than sweet potato and banana ( about twic e ), but very little higher than yams and taro s, and the protein quality is usually somewhat less .

In relation to t he subsistenc e nutrition pattern, the sub­st itution of cereal for the tuber may entail risk of vitamin or mine ral defic ienc ies .

Naturally there is little awarene s s of the relative nutritive value s of the different foods available . There is a gene ral notion of the superiority of meat, perhaps even a craving for it, and likewis e fish . The superiority of pulse s and nuts over othe r

9

vegetables is , naturally enough, unknown.

For infant fe eding, the Chimbu patte rn of supplementary feeding - too late , and too low in protein - applies to most of the Highlands. In some parts of the Territory supplementary fe ed­ing is begun e arly - within days or weeks of birth, e . g . in the Trobriands . 1 1 But invariably, the foods introduc ed are s imply portions of the adult fare, and chiefly the starchy staple food­stuff in that loc ality . Exc ept for premastication, there is no tradition of infant fe eding with foods spec ific ally prepared to suit the infant ' s dige stive powers and in particular his relatively higher protein re quirements .

Malnutrit ion do es not seem to be recognized as such by the unsophisticated New Guine an . The infant who fails to thrive is usually considere d to be the victim of malevolent spirits or so rc e rers, of inauspic ious s e ason or othe r unpropitious cir­cumstanc e s . At the s ame time some women know that their milk supply is poor, and sometime s c an relate lactational failure to a previous illnes s or othe r misfortune . Some foods are tabooed in illness , and some are believed to have therapeutic powers, but these rarely seem to correlate with any nutrit ional value . ( Eggs , sometime s spec ially provided for sick children, are occasionally a happy exception) .

De spite this, with the establishment of hospitals and the succe s sful cure of many c ases of malnutrition in infants and toddlers with e s sent ially dietary treatment only, the important role of feeding is quickly learne d by the New Guinean mother . All too often this is channelled into le arning to bottle - fe e d an already bre astfed baby, but this is another and s ad story.

The love of the New Guinean parents - fathe rs and mothe rs - for their children is re al and de ep . Sicknes s in the offspring is one of the most potent motivating forc e s in New Guine a as in any othe r soc iety. At first, the loc al magic - man t akes prec e denc e when it come s to treatment . But as confidenc e in hospitals grows, admiss ions of s ick children t ake place more often, and e arlier in the course of dis eas e . Village people soon learn that c ertain categories of illnes s can be effectively treated by scientific me dic ine, and even by the hospital fe eding regimes alone (as dist inct from me dic ine s ) .

1 0

There seem to be no major cultural barriers to the recog­nition of malnutrition as a c linical and soc ial dis ease and to the introduction of measures to alleviate it . In this developing society ther e is generally a positive respons e towards public health activities , in relation to recognis ed needs , such as infant welfare s e rvices . Onc e the malnutrition problem is clearly recognised and a practic al programme is demonstrated by which i t may be ove rcome , there is reasonable hope of ade quate motivation, at the village and home level, to enable preventive measures to be taken. Clearly it would be better to go a step further by inte ­grating modifie d infant - feeding practic es (using local resourc es of protein- rich foods ) into the customary and traditional food patt e rn . The stre s s should be plac ed on 'good food for babies ' rather than on 'preventing malnutrition ' . But first . some detailed attention to c linical malnutrition and to practicable methods of treating and preventing it using loc al resourc e s, is re quired .

Protein- c alorie m.alnutrition

Kwashiorko r is one form - and not a very common form -of protein- c alo rie malnutrition affecting toddle rs, chiefly in the age range 1 - 4 years, in the New Guinea Highlands . Kwashiorkor was first de scribed and attributed to protein deficiency by Williams 24 in Ghana . 'Kwashiorko r ' means the 'deposed child' and refers to the fact that the protein deficiency usually arises at the stage of weaning, which in Africa usually takes plac e at about 2 ye ars of age, when the mother becomes pregnant again. In the New Guinea Highlands lactation is usually prolonged for 3- 4 years and kwashiorkor often develops before thi s , sinc e the breastmilk may supply only 2 - 3 g or at most 5 g protein daily after the first 12 months. The child ' s appetite c an usually be s atisfied with sweet potato and othe r vegetable foods, but the protein content of these foods is too low to re ach the total protein re quirement . Breastmilk become s inc reasingly in­ade quate as the sole sourc e of food beyond the age of 6 months, and conse quently there is gene rally some growth retardation, even if not frank malnutrition. ( However, breastmilk supplies first class protein not easily obtainable from other sourc e s . Consequently prolongation of breastfeeding in acco rdance with e xisting customs should be approved and encourage d, not condemned) . The supplementary diet for toddlers aged 1 - 2 years in the Highlands usually supplies about 6 g protein, and the total intake is about 1 0 g short of estimated re qui reme nts ( 1 6 g of first clas s protein, or 2 2 g of mixed proteins ) .

1 1

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Plate 1 . Kwashiorkor

12

The best full descriptions of kwashiorkor are by Brock and Autret 25 and by Trowell, Davies and Dean . 26 There are c e rtain e s sential fe atures, and other common accompaniments of the syndrome . The e s sential feature s are :

( 1 ) Growth retardation - failure to gain weight (when recorde d at monthly intervals ) and often actual weight los s .

( 2) Mental changes - apathy or irritability, or often both . The child is mis erable and res ents any disturbance, but often doe s not resist it actively. It grizzles and moans in a characteristic way .

( 3) Oedema - swelling, due to accumulation of fluid in the loose tis sue s of the body, espec ially the subcutaneous fatty tissue . The oedema occurs first in the feet and lower legs, but later commonly involve s the eyelids, the whole fac e, the hands and even the whole body .

(4 ) Lowered serum prote in levels in the blood - in particular the albumin fraction (probably the main cause of the oedema) .

(5) Muscle wasting - e specially in the buttocks; and later the arms and legs . Best s een during recovery, after the oedema has cle ared .

The accompanying fe ature s include :

( 6) Skin changes - classically an "enamel dermatosis ", in which the skin becomes purple and then dark brown patche s form which become dry and peel off, exposing raw weeping areas like burns . The se changes are most commonly seen around the groins and buttocks and some­time s spread over the re st of the legs and trunk . Quite often howeve r, they are entirely abs ent ; and the se change s do not seem to be related to the sever ity o r any other identifiable c ausal factors such as vitamin defi­cienc ies .

(7) Hair change s - instead of the normal jet -black wiry dense curls, the hair becomes sparse, reddish- brown or greyish-white , straight, soft and silky, and easily

1 3

pluckable o r even may have fallen out naturally.

( 8) Anaemia - usually mild. but pallor of the face ( e�pec ially) may b e marked, bec ause of a combination of anaemia and a dec rease in skin pigmentation .

( 9 ) Liver enlargement - due to fatty degeneration of the liver substanc e (not fibrous tis sue, as found in the liver cirrhosi s which affects adults. and also some children in other parts of the world, e . g. India) .

( 1 0 ) Digestive disorde rs - lack of appetite, diarrhoea .

None of the 'e s s ential ' signs is specific for kwashiorkor . Growth retardation may occur because of other illnes s ; apathy o r irritability becaus e o f other psychologic al or physical disorders ; and oedema bec aus e of kidney diseas e ( or rarely, heart dis ease o r s evere anaemia) . The enamel de rmatosis is specific for kw ashio r­kor but is often abs ent - it was pres ent in only 1 0 % of the c ases s een in Chimbu . 7 The skin changes in New Guineans, and also the blood protein picture, have be en desc ribed in detail by Kariks . 2 7 Hair changes, especially re ddish- brown di scolouration, are pre sent in about 70% of New Guinean toddlers . Severe anaemia is usually c aused by malaria o r hookworm or othe r factors . The liver may be normal in size, but mic ro scopic ally usually doe s show fatty change .

Another form of protein- calorie malnutrition, or more strictly 'undernutrition ' , is called nutritional marasmus . This c an occur at any age from birth onwards, and is, broadly speak­ing, caus ed by a total food sho rtage . In the young infant, this simply means that the mother ' s milk supply i s insufficient . Fortunately this i s a relatively rare acc ident in the village popu­lations generally, but sometimes doe s occur, us ually as a result of illne ss in the mother afte r childbirth - fever due to malaria or other c aus e s ; exc e s s ive haemorrhage ; sepsis ; breast abs c e s s ; and s o on. Sometimes the elde rly mother with 6 or mo re children c an no longer produce enough milk . Twins are always liable to be unde rnourished bec ause of inadequate total breast­milk supply .

Young infants are simply wasted and shrunken in appear­anc e . Older infants and to ddlers ( aged 1 - 4 years) may show virtually all the signs of kwashiorkor except the dermatosis and oedema. There is a bo rderline group c alled 'marasmic

14

kwashiorkor' in which there is gross body wasting and a little oedema. The e s sential distinctions are the abs ence of oedema in marasmus, and the seve re los s of subc utaneous fat due to caloric deficiency.

Plate 2. Marasmus

Seve re wasting may be caused by various illne s s e s, ':� e specially diarrhoea (which may cause rapid shrinking and wasting, due to exc e s sive los ses of body fluids in the fre quent motions ) . Strictly spe aking, nutritional marasmus me ans wasting due solely to insufficient fee ding . Howeve r, both kwashiorkor and marasmus commonly arise following some trivial illness in which the child's appetite is impaired, or the mothe r withholds foods, and the appetite just fails to return, the child entering a vicious c ircle of poo r appetite - insuffic ient nourishment - mild malnutrition - wo rs e appetite - worse mal­nutrition.

*= Including tuberculosis , but this is rare in the Highlands .

15

In general, New Guineans are fast learning to recognis e malnutrition in children as an entity, particularly the marasmic form, a ptly known a s "bone-nothing" in pidgin. Childr en with kw ashiorkor, who are not wasted, are not recognised as suffering from malnutrition, and even medic al orderlie s re quire consider­able t ime and experience before they can really make or even accept this diagnosis .

Thus in kwashiorkor there is pre dominantly a deficiency of protein, and the child is clas sic ally fat and blubbe ry. In marasmus there is predominantly a defic iency of calories . But in both there is in re ality a mixed deficiency of both protein and calorie s . An incidental trivial (or perhaps major) illness is often apparently the precipitating factor . Another frequent pre ­dispo sing c ause i s some disturbanc e in the family s ituation. Death of the mother is quite common, as seen from the hospital angle ; the father brings in a child who has gone rapidly downhill s ince this tragic event . Malnutrition actually following weaning is relatively unusual in the Chimbu, at any rat e . However, malnutrition rather often doe s aris e in familie s where the young fathe r has been rec ruited for work on the coast and the mother finds herself worn down with care of the gardens and perhaps already a s izeable family . She receives no financial help during the husband ' s abs ence .

Kwashiorkor has been shown to respond to a gre at variety of diets supplying abundant ene rgy and prote in- rich foodstuffs . Prote in- rich foods have even been successfully replace d by mixtures of amino ac ids ( the building blocks of proteins ) in suitable proportions . No additional vitamins are re quire d un­le ss there i s concurrent vitamin defic iency . ( Vitamin A defic iency is common in the rice areas of Asia, but is very rare in New Guinea ) .

The classical treatment of kwashiorkor in other countries is with bland diet s supplemented with large quant itie s of skimme d milk . The milk usually has to be given partly as powder mixed with othe r foods bec aus e the quantitie s re quired c an not be taken in fluid form . It may be fortified with conc entrated milk protein ( c ase in ) . The basic diet is usually a porridge made from rice , maize meal,· bananas o r othe r staple foods in accordanc e with the loc al feeding pattern . In New Guinea, sweet potato, bananas and rice have been used, supplemented with milk and tinned me at .

16

Animal fat, and especially the c ream portion of whole milk, is poorly tole rated by these infants ( c ausing diarrhoea) . Howeve r, vegetable fats or oils are well digested and utilised, 28 and at Kundiawa it was found poss ible to tre at kwashiorkor and marasmus effectively with the staple s mentioned, supplemented with peanut foods (prepare d as desc ribed below), with or without skimme d milk . The se diets provide high c alorie and protein in­take s (at le ast 1 0 0 c alorie s and 4 - 5 g protein, per Kg of body weight per day ) .

This high- prot ein high - c alorie diet has to be maintained for at le ast one month and prefe rably for several months . The children usually eat poorly at first, and strenuous efforts are re quire d to get them to take any food . Some like milk, and some do not . Feeds have to be frequent - at least 4 t ime s daily and preferably more often init ially. If not treated effectively, the mortality in seve re kwashiorkor is very high (variously e st imated from 50 to 1 00%), and the mortality and difficulties in treatment are just as gre at in severe marasmus . Blood transfusion is often of gre at benefit in both kwashiorkor and marasmus . With effective treatment the mortality can be re duc e d below 10%, but always there is a residue of sudden unexpected de aths, or gradual deterioration with inc idental illnes s (usually diarrhoe a or pneumonia) which c annot be countered despite every effort .

Succ essful treatment causes a rapid disappearance of oe dema fluid in kwashiorkor, a re storation of serum protein levels, and rapid weight gain . The apathy and irritability dis ­appe ar, and one of the earliest s igns of good progress in treatment is inc reasing ale rtness and a willingne ss to s mile . Gains in body weight are at several t ime s the rate in normal children of the s ame age or weight . The fatty degeneration in the live r resolve s more gradually, over a period of months . Some permanent retardation of skeletal and even of mental development may occur . 2 9

Various vegetable protein- rich foods have be en used for the treatment of protein- c alorie malnutrit ion, e spec ially in India and parts of Africa and some Central American countries . In India various loc ally grown pulses ( legume s ) have been used : some dhalls ( Phaseolus, Cajanus, Dolicho s and othe r specie s ) and soya bean and peanut preparations . In Africa s imilar pulses have been used, and groundnut flour; cottonseed oil w as used to supply additional calories in Uganda. 28 In Guatemala a scientifically

1 7

evolved and tested mixture of loc ally available c e re als and cotton­s ee d and sesame flour is being produc e d comme rcially (known as Inc aparina) at a price well below that of skimme d milk. It is suitable for the tre atment of malnutrition, and also as a general item of the diet . However technologic al development, agricul­tural products and purchasing pow e r in New Guinea would not permit the production and consumption of Inc aparina itself in New Guinea as a regular infant food . In our Territory it appeared that the peanut was the most widely available and popular prote in­rich food grown ( in the Highlands in particular) . The aim of the nutrition re s earch programme was to find some loc ally - grown protein- rich food which was nutritionally satisfactory as a ' we aningr food for babies , was culturally acc eptable and agricul­turally po ssible at least throughout most of the Highlands .

Peanut feeding for hospital children

Peanuts w e re therefore s elected for initial study in the nutrition re s e arch programme begun in Kundiawa in 1 9 6 1 .

Afte r some trial and error, the mo st satisfactory method of feeding pe anuts w as found to be as pe anut butte r, home - made from locally grown peanuts in the following w ay . Mature sun­dried shelled pe anuts are baked to a light brown colour in a warm oven, and left for a few hours ( e . g. overnight ) in the oven after the fire has gone out, so as · to be thoroughly dried out . They are ground once ( twice i f not properly dried out ) in a Beat ri z Corn Mill, ':{ now retailed at £A2 . 1 2 . 6d . in the Highlands . Pe anut butte r could be made with a hous ehold mince r by s everal grindings of baked peanuts - usually 1 0 or 1 2 time s - but this w as too te dious for general application .

Actually pe anuts had been us ed for some ye ars for infant feeding in the Baptist Mis sion Hospital at Baiye r River in the We st e rn Highlands . 9 The re, lightly baked pe anuts w ere ground with an ordinary minc e r into a coars e flour, which was fe d in rather small quantities to malnourished infants and toddlers . This pionee r work was done by Siste r C rouch . She had been encouraged in the late 1940 's to try peanuts o r other loc ally­produced protein- rich foods as milk- substitutes , by Dr . Joan

�:< Manufactured in England by John Harpe r, Willenhall, Staffs .

1 8

Ref shauge, Director of the Maternal, Infant and Child Health Division of the Department of Public Health . Si ster Crouch made the us eful di scove ry that peanut flour was better tolerated when fed with mashed ripe banana than with sweet potato o r other foods .

In hospital practice the advantages of peanut butter were -

(1) pe anuts could be grown and prepared loc ally;

(2) it was often more acceptable to infants and toddle rs than milk;

( 3) bacterial contamination, leading to diarrhoea, was les s liable t o occur than with milk, especially when bottle s w e re us ed for the latter ;

(4 ) it could be kept - for several months at least ; ':<

( 5) in a s mall bulk it supplied a relatively large amount of protein and calories ;

( 6 ) it could be pre ssed into egg- sized balls which the child could hold in his hand, and e at piec emeal .

Various recipe s were tried and the most popular proved to be the swe et potato/pumpkin/peanut mixture ( for infants aged over 6 months only) ; peanut butter balls ( for infants over 6 months ), alone or put ins ide a banana or sweet potato split lengthwis e - the 'peanut - banana split ' ; and peanut butter mixed with mashed ripe Cavendish banana ( equal parts of each) for infants under 6 months . For very young infants (unde r about 4 months ) this peanut -banana mash sh�uld be mixed with a little wat e r to a s emi - fluid consistency. The peanut - banana mash

):< Eventually it become s rancid . This could be prevented or delayed by adding 1 t% common s alt . However, in practic e the problem is not how to pre s e rve, but how to prevent the consumption of a given quantity all at onc e . The addit ional expense and trouble of adding salt is conside red unnec essary. Bacterial contamination during sho rt - t erm storage doe s not appear to be a problem in practic e .

19

was fed by the mother, with a te aspoon or he r finger .

It was e stablished, b y gradually extending peanut butter feeding to younger and younger infants , that i t w as well tolerated - and very well liked . Whole peanuts and coarsely ground pea­nuts w ere fed to adults and older children (with t eeth) and con­siderable amounts of whole or fragmented nuts were found to pass through the intestines unchanged, being recognis able in the faec es . The fine grinding into peanut butter with the Beatri z Corn Mill i s probably the re ason for the abs ence of diarrhoe a, which had bedevilled earlier trials with pe anut foods in various plac e s .

During 196 1-6 2 an attempt w as made to ass e s s the value of peanut foods, prepare d as de sc ribed above , in the tre atment of malnourished children . 7 Attention was concentrated on marasmic children over 6 months of age . They were treated with peanut foods only, o r skimmed milk and peanut foods ; and a few with skimme d milk only and a few with ward diet (sweet potato and ve getable s ) only . All the children (exc ept the mother­les s ) were breastfed.

It was not pos sible to establish exactly identical groups for comparative pu rposes . The 4 children on the ward diet all went downhill, one developing kwashio rko r, and so this purism was abandoned . Ade quate comparisons were possible between the peanut - only and peanut + milk groups, numbering 5 1 and 60 respectively . Progre ss was ass e s s ed in terms of weight gain and inc reas e in serum protein levels . There were no significant differenc e s in re sponse between the dietary groups .

Seve ral breastfed children with kwashio rkor were also tre ated with peanut foods only, and the general respons e and dis ­appearanc e of oedema were as good as in the peanut/skimmed milk group . Bre astfed infants below 6 months also show ed the s ame response in the different dietary groups .

Nitrogen balance studies ' were also carried out on a few malnourished and a few healthy children. In these , the total nitrogen intake in the food, and the output in urine and faec es, were measured, and the absorption, utilis ation and digestibility for the foods w e re estimated . Inc identally, it was found that consumption of plain peanut butte r gave the highest actual protein and calorie intake s , rathe r than any of the mixture s .

20

The re sults of all these clinical trials 7 indicate that peanut foods are reasonably well utilised, and that they are effective ( either alone or together with skimme d milk) in the treatment of malnutrition in breastfed children.

Initially, becaus e of traditional infant fee ding practices ( or rathe r, the lack of them!) it was difficult to persuade mothers to feed any foods to young infants . However. as the routine became e stablished at Kundiawa, the benefits of peanut feeding were readily apparent to the mothers. They bec ame willing to fee d peanut foods earlie r - before the eruption of the first teeth, and eventually parents would come to the hospital asking for admission so that their young infants could rec eive peanut foods . Peanut fe eding bec ame a s elf- advertising pro­gramme .

Peanut fe eding for village children

To e stabli sh peanut butter as a regular infant food in village s, clearly it is e s sential that peanuts be grown in the village and not supplied as a gove rnment hand- out . Every village mother with an infant age d from 6 months to 2 years should grow and proc ess peanuts for peanut butter, us ing a suitably located and supervised grinder .

It is not argued from the results summarised above that peanut protein is just as good as milk protein . However, s inc e in most cases peanut foods can effec tively cure malnutrition, their timely us e at the village level should usually be able to prevent it .

In villages , it has been found suitable to bake peanuts by placing them on a sheet of metal or in a dry frypan or billycan about one foot above a smouldering fire, for 2-4 hours .

The quantity required as an effective supplement is es­timated at 10 g protein':' daily . This means one pound of shelled peanuts fortnightly or 26 lbs per year - e quivalent to about 40 lbs peanuts in the shell . Production in the Highlands i s e stimated

Peanut butter contains 30% prote in, i . e . 1 o z . peanut butte r • I

is re quired daily .

2 1

by the Department of Agriculture, Stock and Fishe rie s 30 at 1 120 lbs per ac re . ':' The tot al amount of land required is the refore les s than one twentieth of an ac re ; actually, a 40 ' x 40 ' area . Even an amateur gardene r w as able to grow much more than this in his spare time in his Kundiawa back- yard! This quantity could in fact be grown at one planting, or in suc c e s sive round­the - year plantings . For instanc e, 4 small areas of the customary 10 ' x 10 ' could be planted every 3 months . If a pro ­portion of the nut s is to be sold and/ or used for consumption by the rest of the family, a correspondingly larger area would of course be re quired . In the past , D. A . S. F . has arranged that villagers shell the pe anuts after harve sting them, and D. A. S. F . purchased as a cash c rop only the superior ( larger ) nuts , leaving the inferior nuts ( about half of the c rop) for village consumption. The s e should be sufficient in quality for making peanut butt e r . Promotion o f pe anuts a s a c ash c rop could react detrimentally to the promotion of peanut butter as an infant food . Howeve r, suffic ient quantity could still be made available, by planting double the area mentioned ( and a small additional area for seed, and perhaps an equal are a again if require d for consumption by the whole family) . Competition with other c rops for available land is discussed mo re fully by Brookfield and Shand .

If storage for long periods is re quire d, the dry nuts could best be kept in the shells , inside hollowed bamboo poles or woven pitpit baskets, sealed to prevent acc ess by children o r rat s . Such containers a r e already i n u s e b y villagers for storing s eed etc . They could be opened one by one as required . Similar containers could be used for storing shelled peanut s or peanut butte r .

The next vital question w a s where best t o loc ate the Co rn Mills .

A limited supply of grinde rs was available . It w as dec ide d to plac e one of these initially in each of the hospitals in the Highlands, so that pe anut foods could be used routinely in the tre atment of malnutrition, and so that hospitals could be effective demonstration c entre s of the method and value of infant-feeding

==:' Virginia Bunch is the variety strongly recommended and promoted in the Highlands by D. A . S. F .

2 2

with peanut butte r . The planting of large pe anut gardens at all Highlands hospitals is nec e s s ary to prevent the hospitals from becoming major peanut purchasers. ( These pe anut gardens are in themselves a us eful adve rtisement for the peanut -butte r infant­feeding project, besides supplying the peanuts for all hospitalised malnourished children) .

Although peanuts as a c rop are planted and harvested by the women, the men are responsible for alloc ating the available ground fo r the different agricultural purposes, which are in a sense inevitably competitive .

It was clearly important therefore to persuade the men that peanuts should be planted and grown; and moreover, that the c rop should be e armarked specifically for infant and toddler consumption, unless a sufficient exc ess could be grown for the whole family to eat, o r for sale .

It was felt that the best approach would be through Local Government Counc ils ( L . G. C . ), whose members should be, if anyone, the people best able and eager to give a lead to the community. From the inc eption of the nutrition rese arch pro ­gramme, the Waiye L . G . C . , ( 5 miles from Kundiawa) had been kept informed of the nature and purpose of the work being unde r­taken in the hospital and in the village surveys . Now that a practic al remedy was to be put forward, demonstrations and discus sions were held, concentrating particularly on the Council are a .

A detailed pilot study in one area w as re quire d; an assessment of the practic al, cultural and agricultural problems at the counc il, village and home level . The s e were studied by Mr . and Mrs. Ross who lived in the village at Mintima (in the Council area) from July, 19 6 2 until July, 19 6 3 . Through their good offices the· co- operation of the Waiye Council has been consolidated, a peanut - planting programme planned jointly with the Council has been initiated, and peanut - grinding clinic s e stablished in the are a for mothe rs with infants.

Grinders, purchased by the Waiye Counc il, are now e stablishe d permanently at each of the Aidposts in the Council area, and extension into the adjac ent Kerowagi are a (Koronigl Council) area is under w ay. In the latte r area, grinders may

2 3

be looked after by e ach politic al c lan repre sented in the Counc il, rather than by Aidpost Orderlies .

Considerable supervision of the use of the grinde rs i s required initially . They need to be firmly bolted with wing nuts to a solid supporting bench or plank . The operator needs practice to adjust the grinding plate s tight enough to produce a smooth paste , but not so tight as to cause breakage of the handle or shaft of the grinder . Sc rew - threads are apt to be stripped by tho se not brought up with the se common- plac es of our c ivilisation. And finally, a daily cle ansing cannot be taken for granted .

A further factor of importanc e which has come to light as the plan evolve d w as first seen at Gumine, one of the patrol posts in the Chimbu Subdistrict . In the middle of 1 9 6 2 the hospital there was taken ove r by two of the first indigenous Medic al Assistant graduates from the Papuan Medical College . The ir enthus iasm in e stabli shing infant - feeding with peanut butte r in the hospital, and in promoting it in the course of patrols in outlying village s, was exemplary. Mr . Temgw e ' s contribution to this symposium was invite d in recognition of this work .

Experienc e thus far doe s indicat e at least one practical answer to the need for a protein- rich weaning supplement for Highlands infants . It is not c laimed to be the only po ssible solution, nor that it will prevent every single case of malnut ri ­tion . Howeve r, the popularity of the regime is such that the limiting factors in its spread may be the availability of grinders and Virginia Bunch pe anut s e e d, rather than other cultural , agricultural or economic factors . Peanut s c an be grown in most coastal areas as well as in the Highlands, but the re i s an altitude c eiling somewhe re around 6, 500 ' · Above this c eiling another solution may have to be found (or pos sibly varieties of peanuts which will thrive in the cooler conditions ) . It may be poss ible to exchange othe r subsistence crops for peanuts in higher- altitude loc alitie s , or to purchase them with cash from s ale of other local produce . Soya beans and pe as are othe r subsistenc e pos sibilities, better suited to higher altitude s . Anothe r approach to the problem, currently under investigation, is the production of improved varieties of sweet potato, contain­ing mo re protein .

24

Is the re a reasonable prospect that there . will be ade quate motivation in Chimbu soc iety, and perhaps elsewhe re in New Guinea, not only to overcome the practical difficulties and to solve the clinic al nutrition problem in one or all of the se ways, but also to integrate into customary food patte rns an altogether new patte rn of infant and toddler fee ding ?

2 5

Table 2

C auses of de ath in Kundiawa Hospital

C auses of de ath Infants

N

Cirrhosis of liver

and related diseases

Malnutrition 1

Kwashiorkor

Anaemia

Dysentery 1

Gastroenteritis 1 3

Pneumonia and

respiratory diseases 78

Meningitis 2

Nephritis

Whooping cough 1 6

Malaria, cerebral

malaria

Tetanus

Bowel inflammations,

peritonitis

C ardio-vascular

diseases 2

C ancer

Pregnancy and

childbirth

Prematurity and

congenital defects 1 5

Accident and violence

Other 2

TOTAL 1 30

Notes

1 . Data from Death Certificates

0 - 1 2 mos Children 1 - 17 yrs .

% N %

3 2 . 8

. 8 3 2. 8

3 2 . 8

8 7. 5

. 8 1 3 1 2 . 1

1 0 9 8 . 4

60 40 37. 4

1 . 5 7 6 . 5

1 0. 9

12. 3 7 6. 5

6 5 . 6

1 0. 9

1 . 5 1 0. 9

1 1. 5

1 . 5 5 4. 7

99 . 9 107 99 . 8

Adults 1 8 yrs . and over

N %

2 9 3 3

3 3 . 4

1 1 . 1

Q 6. 8

1 1 1 2. 5

5 5 . 7

6 6 . 8

5 5 . 7

2 2. 3

3 3 . 4

4 4. 5

2 2. 3

4 4. 5

4 4. 5

3 3. 4

88 99 . 9

Period covered: Infants 1 962 and Jan -Sept 1 963; Children 1 96 1 , 1 962 and Jan-Sept 1 963;

Adults 1 96 1 , 1 962 and Jan -Sept 1 96 3.

Patients from all over Chimbu Division, Eastern Highlands District, New Guinea .

2 . The de aths in Kundiawa hospital are a very small proportion of deaths in the are a .

Unfortunately w e do not know what selection there m ay b e in bringing cases to the

hospital or the c auses of de ath outside the hospital . A morbidity survey now in progress

by Dr . Vines and his te am is expected to throw light on this question .

26

Referenc e s

1 . Ivinskis , V . 1 9 56 . Oc eania 2 7 : 14 3 .

2 . Venkatachalam, P . S . and Ivinskis, V. 1 9 5 7 . Med . J. Aust . i : 2 7 5 .

3 . Venkatachalam, P . S . 1 9 6 2 . Dept . Puhl . Hlth . Monograph No . 4 , Port Moresby.

4 . Oomen, H . A . P . C . and Malcolm, S . H . 1 9 58 . S . P . C . Techn . Pape r No . 1 1 8, Noume a.

5 . Hipsley, E . H . and Clements, F . W. (Ed . ) 1 94 7 . R epo rt of the New Guinea Nutrition Survey Expedition, Dept . External Territorie s , C anberra .

6 . Bailey, K . V. 1 9 6 3 . Food and Nutr . Note s and Reviews ( Comm . Dept . Hlth, Canberra) 2 0 : 89 .

7 . Bailey, K. V. 1 9 6 3 . J . t rop. Pe diat . 9 : 3 5 .

8 . Bailey, K. V. 1 9 6 3 . J . t rop. Pediat . ( in pre s s ) (Growth of Chimbu Infants ) .

9 . McKay, S . 1 9 6 0 . Med . J . Aust . i : 4 52 .

1 0 . Sc ragg, R . F . R . 1 9 5 5 . Med . J . Aust . i : 1 2 8 .

1 1 . Malcolm, S . H . 1 9 5 2 . S . P . C . Techn. Paper No . 1 5, Noumea.

1 2 . Someswara Rao, K . , Swaminathan, M. C . , Swarup, S . and Patwardhan, V. N . 1 9 59 . Bull . Wld . Hlth . Org. 20 : 603 .

1 3 . Dean, R . F . A. 1 9 6 1 . J . trop. Pe diat . 7 : 3 .

14 . Jelliffe , D . B . 1 9 6 3 . Ame r . J . publ . Hlth . 5 3 , 9 0 5 .

1 5 . Bailey, K . V. and Whiteman, J . 1 9 64 . Trop. geogr . Med . ( in pre s s ) (Nutritional Studie s in the Chimbu) .

1 6 . Hipsley, E . H . 1 9 6 1 . Food and Nut r . Note s & Reviews ( Comm . Dept . Hlth, Canberra) 1 8 : 9 5 .

2 7

1 7 . Bailey, K . V. 1 9 6 3 . Trop. geogr . Med . ( in pre s s ) ( Nutritional Status i n some New Guinean Populations ) .

1 8 . Bailey, K. V. 1 9 64 . Trop. geogr . Med . ( in pre s s ) (Nutritional Oedema in the Chimbu) .

1 9 . Bailey, K. V. 1 9 6 1 . Trop. geogr . Med . 1 3 : 2 34 .

20. Bailey, K. V . 1 9 6 1 . Trop. geogr . Med. 1 3 : 303 .

2 1 . Bailey, K. V. 1 9 6 2 . Trop. geogr . Med. 14 : 1 1 .

2 2 . Lea, D . 1 9 6 3 . Pe rsonal communication . Australian National U,-niversity, Canberra.

2 3 . Hamilton, L . 1 9 5 5 . Papua and N . G . agric . J . 10 : 54 .

24 . Williams, C . D . 1 9 3 3 . Arch . Dis . Childh . 8 : 4 2 3 .

2 5 . Brock, J . F . and Autret, M . 1 9 52 . F . A . 0. Nut r . Studie s No . 8 , Rome .

2 6 . Trowell, H . C . , Davies , J. N . P . and Dean, R . F . A. 1 9 54 . Kwashiorkor, Edw ard Arnold, London.

2 7 . Kariks, J . 1 9 6 0 . Papua and N . G. med . J . 4 : 5 .

2 8 . Dean, R . F . A . 1 9 6 0 . J . Pe diat . 56 : 6 7 5 .

2 9 . Scrimshaw, N . S . 1 9 6 3 . J . Amer . diet Ass . 4 2 : 203 .

3 0 . Kingston, J . 1 9 6 2 . In Report of Seminar on Nutrition, Goroka.

2 8

Discussion (following Dr. Bailey ' s paper)

Unknown : At what stage do the changes that occur in malnutrition become irreversible ?

Bailey: Malnutrition is not beyond repair at any stage . Even the most despe rate c ases c an be re scued with vigorous treatment in the ho spital . Some permanent retardation ( phys ical and possibly mental ) does occur in the most severely effected infants, but recove ry from s erious malnutrition is so good with adequate treatment that it is ve ry difficult to detect a previous episode of severe malnutrit ion.

Unknown : If you solved the problem of infant malnutrition what means do you see for ke eping malnutrition in adults at bay ?

Bailey: In adults, nutritional re quirements are relatively much le s s than in infants, and the daily diet of adult New Guineans seems to me et mo st of the protein needs . However, this may not be true for pregnant and lactating women, and the possibilities for using pe anuts or other protein rich foods during a pregnancy and lactation are under study, and would ne ed to follow up such a programme as the pre s ent one .

Dr . Muriel Bell : gillus favus toxin ?

Are the pe anuts free from the Asper-

Bailey: Apparently yes . As far as we are aware there has been no ill effect from the peanut feeding that has been going on for two years under close supe rvision.

Mrs . Winnifred Garran: In the early days of peanut feeding in New Guinea the re was some fe ar by Infant Welfare Siste rs, that the high fat cont e nt of pe anuts might upset the infants dig e stion .

Bailey: Recent work in Africa has shown that the in-tolerance to fat is e s sentially towards animal fat rather than vegetable fat . The fat in properly pr epare d peanut foods does not caus e any intolerance in most infants .

Unknown : Has there be en difficulty in keeping the

29

mothers of babie s with Kwashiorkor in hospital ? My experienc e in Uganda was that after the initial improvement the mothers tende d to go home with the children and any benefit gained in ho spital was lost .

Bailey: This problem does occur in the Chimbu . In 1 9 6 1 and 1 9 62 , 5 1 children with Kwashiorkor w ere admitte d to hospital, and about 1 0 of the s e returned home before they were supposed to . One of thes e subsequently died in the village, but the remaining 50 were still alive and well some months after discharge . Generally the infants stay for 2 to 3 months in hospital and only a minority go home earlier .

Unknown : What are the main factors limiting the use of milk powders in the Chimbu are a ?

Bailey: It is a very good culture medium for bacteria and unhygienic handling in the village home makes milk mixture s risky at the pres ent stage of developm ent . Moreove r, milk in any form is an imported product and the aim of the programme in the Chimbu was to find a product that the people could provide for themselves .

Unknown : Are there any protease inhibitors i n peanuts ?

Bailey: If you are referring to trypsin inhibitors , not in the cooked peanuts .

Unknown : One could have too much emphasis on a particular form of protein . Where peanuts are grown on a large scale disease might wipe out the c rops . Should not other sourc es of protein be inve stigated ?

Bailey: In princ iple your comment is correct, but we found i t difficult enough to interest people in pe anut feeding . Diversific ation would le ad to mo re difficulties . Further work should be done on other available foods, but it seems more im -portant to provide more protein in any form, rather than conc entrate on quality of the particular protein . Any locally producible legume or other s afe protein sourc e would be suitable if local c ircumstanc es enable it to be consume d .

3 0

Goodbye to all that ?

Paula Brown

(Australian National University, Canberra )

We have been told that s erious nutritional inade quac ies occur in 3 % of Chimbu babies . Dr . Bailey ' s efforts at cure and provention of malnutrition have been desc ribed, and othe r speakers will have more to s ay about the introduction of peanuts as infant food . I have no spec ial knowledge of nutritional prob ­lems in Chimbu o r e lsewhe r e . My aim is to present a general picture of the Chimbu, their history and social development, and I shall later comment upon the place of the peanut program in this .

Until the 1 9 3 0 ' s the c entre of New Guine a was thought to be an uninhabitable mountain mass . Then gre at fertile valleys were discove red, inhabited by hundre d of thousands of gardeners, living in larger communitie s than the Melane s ian coastal peoples . The Chimbu valley is one of the s e . In thirty years the Chimbu people have le arnt to use new steel tools ; they have begun to grow and proc e s s agric ultural products for sale ; and young men have wo rked as labourers all ove r the Territory of Papua and New Guine a . They have seen the introduction of rudimentary medic al servic es , missions, schools, agricultural extension, a police force , a judic ial system, and loc al govern­ment councils . Young people have grown up in the security afforded by the government suppre s sion of warfare, but the elde rs retain vivid memories of the days before the white man came, and mo st of their tradit ional beliefs and practic es survive . In the five years that I have known the Chimbu of Naregu tribe they have passed through a spurt of developmental enthusiasm, entered a s emi - cash economy, been dis appointed in their rewards, and some have begun a movement of reaction . But these more rec ent phases and moods must be related to their traditions before the ir significance can be discus s ed .

W e have no information about early highland culture , and we c an only guess that for s everal hundred years the people have been using polished stone axe s, wooden spades and digging sticks to grow sweet potatoe s and a variety of other c rops .

3 1

Long before this , with a smaller population, they must have been hunters and collectors of food; and then I pre sume a simpler form of agriculture, perhaps with a different staple c rop, pre ­ceded the pre s ent complex form . As subsistenc e production inc reased, the forest w as re duced and wild products were largely replac ed in the diet by cultivated plants , pandanus trees (for nuts and oil) , and dome stic pigs . Population density in Chimbu is the highest in New Guinea; the Chimbu have spre ad from their narrow valley in all directions, competing with one anothe r and neighbouring peoples for land .

Although Chimbu population density exc eeds 400 pe r square mile in the valley, there are no towns and no c entral government . The largest polit ical units are tribes of a few thous and people, composed of largely autonomous c lans, them -selves segmented into subclans, local groups and families which are independent for nearly all purposes save occasional c e re ­monies and warfare . Houses are scattered throughout the tribe ' s territory and the people are free to follow their own interests . Land and livelihood were subj ect to raids and de struction by enemies , and ne arly every group c an rec ite a long tradition of military losses and forc ed migration in search of new land with some hope of security.

Even now we have no ac curate demographic, fertility or mortality data on Chimbu . It is unlikely that many deaths oc curred in battle, but c rop destruction in warfare probably contribute d to nutritional deficience s, and the general conditions of squalor and lack of me dic al knowledge must have been factors in the high de ath rate which characterizes all New Guine a high­land people . We c an only conc lude, by considering traditions of migration and expansion, and the extens ive us e of land for gardens, that the Chimbu have been a growing population. Why they should seem to have expanded more than most other New Guine a highland people is a puz zle . Diet is s imilar throughout the New Guine a Highlands, warfare is common, and exc ept for kuru ( limited to the fore and neighbouring groups ) no genetic or physic al differenc es which would account for this have been reported . Nutritional defic iencies were noted in Chimbu by a perc eptive medic al officer some years ago and wo rk has been concentrated there mainly because of the s ize of the population and of Kundiawa hospital .

3 2

The Chimbu are not tied to the struggle for existenc e . They set a high value o n display and distribution o f goods . Their festibals and all gatherings to c elebrate birth, pube rty, marriage and death involve the distribution and exchange of valuable goods and foodstuffs - inc luding ordinary subsistenc e foods, rarer spec ial foods, and delicac ies such as oil, pigs and nut s . Both the size of the display and the proportions of the more favoured foods are sourc es of pride and prestige . Chimbus harve st nuts and rear pigs mainly to give to others ; their own consumption of these depends largely on what they receive . Both men and women cultivate food c rops for distribution as well as consump­tion, and nowadays for sale also .

Some of e ach family ' s foodstuffs are distributed; there is a circulation within the community . Some production is exported

that is, exchanged for feathers, shells, axe s and other goods not available in the Chimbu habitat . These items, once ac quire d circulate in payments and c e remonial distributions .

This intense exchange ac tivity is extraneous to subsis ­tence needs : some food is w asted, and much time and energy is expended beyond subsistence production and consumption . The Chimbu have plenty of leisure for c eremonies , fighting and ex­change . And thes e are the activities which give them their greatest satisfactions - a display of food, a fine line of feathere d heads at a dance , the routing of an enemy.

Every married man has his own land and property . Most subs istenc e wo rk c an be done by an individual or a family . E ach pe rson is in c lose relations of mutual aid with others in his local group and has ties with relative s living els ewhere, but he can choose his closest associates from amongst his kinsmen and clansmen, and c an vis it or join a more distant relative if he w ants to . Participation in the larger activities is the result of many individual dec isions to join in the busine s s at hand, not through organization . A few of the activitie s, especially large c e remonies , re quire planning and coordination of effort , but there i s no pe rmanent organization or authority to draw in­dividuals together or compel cooperation . Each individual and small group defende d its own territory and built up its own prestige : it joined with others occas ionally for defence and attack .

3 3

The Chimbu before 1 9 3 3 were skilful cultivators and pig raisers , exuberant and uncontrolled fighters - an early Patrol Offic er wrote ' They Fight for Fun ' - and th ey took pleasu re in display and exchange . The ir religious beliefs , cosmology and artistic skills w e re little developed; their energies went into competition and bombast . Thes e traits can be s e en in their adjustment to a changing situation. Until 1 9 3 3 they had little trade contact with people outside the highlands . Then they s aw their first c loth, metal, and white men. Thirty years have brought many changes, but they are not enough to transform the culture .

Chimbu ' s fir st interest in the white man w as for his cargo . The killing of two mis s ionaries was inc idental to this -the people w e re bold in their att empts to take what they wanted . They were intens ely curious about Europeans . Pac ific ation was the first administrative task, but tribal fighting persisted as the main remedy for grievanc es . Soon headmen were appointed -they were expected to bring disputes to court so they did not b ecome violent .

From 1 9 3 5 a Patrol Officer was stationed at Kundiawa to control a large area and a population of about 200, O O O . Gradually, all areas were visited and some c ensus work began . Berkshire and Tamworth pigs, and a number of European vegetables ( c abbage, tomatoes , soya, peanuts } were introduc ed . The supply of goldlip mothe r of pearl shells , important as decoration and a part of c eremonial payments , inc r eased, and knives, axes and spades were widely used . Administration officers destroyed weapons when fights were broken up . The c e remonial life con­tinued; payment s and decoration increas ed with new goods and the absenc e of destruction and interference through tribal war ­fare . Medic al work began and there was a school for a brief period in about 1 9 3 9 . Missions w e re established and began some medic al and educ ational activities .

During the war ANGAU, the Australian New Guinea Administrative Unit, took charge, attempting to keep communic a­tions in order and stop epidemic s . The rapid suc c e s sion of offic ers before and during the war, each with his own aims and conc e rns, could not but confuse the natives : first one s ettled tribal boundaries, then one punishe d thos e who did not maintain latrines, another tried to c atch every murdere r, the next kept

34

people at work building roads and another urged reafforestation. When the Offic er - in- Charge was withdrawn in 1 94 6 , tribal fighting was again widespread.

The first twelve years of Australian administration intro ­duc ed some technologic al changes and re stricted fighting . Chimbus realised that the administration was interested in peac e and developing communic ations by extending roads . The sole offic er was a Native Affairs man . There was no real effort towards medic al improvement, elementary educ ation, economic develop­ment, and no change in living standards or hygiene .

During the next fift een years or so, since the re - establish­ment of civil administration, there has been a slow growth in administrative staff and s ervic e s : the establishment of a few primary schools, a ho spital and Aid Posts thinly scattered throughout the rural area, agricultural extension work, recruitment for labour on coastal plantations , a polic e stat ion and an increas e in Native Affairs staff . With peac e throughout the highlands, Chimbus move over great distanc e s to work on coffee plantations and as domestic s e rvants, to trade in feathers and shells, and a few have taken up independent enterprise as gold miners .

But all of this is extremely limited . There is still only one doctor for 1 6 0, O O O people in the Chimbu Division. I was not able to obtain figures on the proportion of children in school . Many tribes have nothing but mis sion catechism schools taught by men with only primary schooling themselves ; in others the government primary school may take as many as 2 0% of the 6 - 1 0 age group, but a tiny fraction o f the s e can find a plac e for Standard 4 and beyond . Boys are frequently dismissed from school for bad behaviour; continuation of schooling s eems to depend upon docility and good attendance . Now a few children have reached a standard in mis sion or government schools pre ­paring them for a s econdary school or training in a trade, but th e r e is nowhere for them to go : they are neither s elected by ability nor guided into fields appropriate to their interests . Adult education is so far unknown . Motivation is not lacking : the people very badly want the skilled pos itions of the area - clerks, carpenters , drivers , mechanic s - to be held by their own people, and the youths are intens ely intere sted in training programs . Sent back to the community, with neither reading materials nor opportunities to us e the ir knowledge, they quickly forget it . I

3 5

am not surprised that there are only two or three adult Chimbus literate in English, but think it is a matter for conc e rn that children now ten ye ars old have fini sh ed thei r schooling at Standard Two or Three in a government school or at no standard at all in a mis s ion school .

When coffee came into production several ye ars ago, the Chimbu were very optimistic : they thought they could soon obtain the wealth they s aw Europeans enjoying . Coffee has inc reasingly been the chief c ash c rop in c entral Chimbu, but c are of coffe e groves , proc ess ing and marketing are little supervised, and the natives usually rec eive the lowest price for the poor quality of their coffee beans .

Money has entered the economy . Everyone i s accustomed to buying and using the wares of loc al shops - a few foods, cloth­ing, enamelware and s imple tools . They also now pay tax, court fines, and buy fowls, dogs, cattle and pigs· from one another and from mis sions and government . But there is no general compre­hension of monetary value . While wage s as labourers for Europeans remain near the minimum of 3 0 shillings a month, chickens are pric ed at £ 1 , annual tax is £2 , they hand over £ 1 00 in cash at marriages, large amounts of money change hands in c ard game s , and £ 1 0 was recommended as the membership fee in a cooperative society. The people imagine that the income of about £3 - 4 per quarter for road maintenanc e by a group of several hundred people will permit group outlays on feasts , mar riage payments, · and even a Land Rover . A s ingle party r ec ently cost about £8 00, mainly paid by one large cpffee grow e r with contri­butions by many others . Conspicuous display in c e remony and exchange have inc re ased although traditional rituals are declining . There is pride in lavish outlays for ce lebrations, and in council buildings of timber with iron roofs, but little underst anding of pric es and value s .

The re i s no s ense of urgenc y: waiting i s a common us e of time for Chimbus . When a man is invited to receive a small piec e of pork from his cousin, he arrives before noon and waits until 3 or 4 p . m . for his portion . He may wait s everal days at the government station before an offic er is fre e to de al with his cas e . He will walk all day to visit a relative, and return home a day o r two later . A trip to the Aid Post or hospital clinic is normally a full day ' s excursion, including a long walk and a w ait

3 6

for attention . The one day a week nominally given to road maintenanc e begins at 9 or 1 0 and continues to 1 1 or 1 2 , followed by a little dome stic work such as the gathering of firewood . The s ale of a few pounds of coffee beans require s a wait of s everal hours for the buyer . The s ame generous allocation of time is found in their own c e re monial life : s everal days are given over to marriage negotiation, then a day for cooking pigs, the next to c arrying the pigs and the night to lecturing and singing to the bride , the next for the c eremonial payment and taking the bride to the groom ' s house , and another day for a vegetable exchange about a week later . Although women do some gardening, harvest ­ing, carrying and cooking every day, men devote a full day to a specific garden o r construction task .

Me etings are called often, and every meeting fills a day . From the night before or early mo rning the hills resound with shouts to ass emble . By t en o 'cloc k a few have drifted in, and calls increas e in fre quency. The government office r may come at any time now, or the loc al people may themselves get unde r way by noon. The meeting may last only an hour or so, but there is no likelihood of any other productive activity that day .

Chimbus do not fac e this us e of time with impatienc e -it has always been this way, and the regular work hours of employed labourers and men in prison are regarded as severe . Plans and programs are vaguely extended into the indefinite future . No seasonal variations require a strict agricultural calendar . A pig fe ast is announce d years before the prepara­tions are complet ed . House sites are marked out and some material gathered, but it is often months between the succ es sive stages of construction .

Until 1 9 59 the system of appointe d officials - Luluais and Tultuls - adopted throughout New Guinea for native adminis ­tration was us ed in the area . Sinc e 1 9 59 three Local Government Councils have been est ablished, but thes e include only a fraction of the Chimbus . Councils can be a dramatic step towards loc al government : a group of former enemy tribes are joined together, officials are elected and participate in regular meetings, supposedly planning community development . The Counc il collects taxes and alloc ate s its income . Yet councillors are only the loc al leaders - perhaps progre ssive in ide als, but un­educ ated, and untrained in formal procedure , budgeting, or the

3 7

powers of a Council . After four ye ars the members of Waiye Council do not yet know what matters can appropriately be di scussed and acted upon by a Council; they make proposals for current expenditure months afte r the annual budget has been voted; some matte rs are raised repeatedly, with no solutions propo sed; at nearly every me eting counc illors complain that they do not have the authority they would like to accomplish their aims .

In practic e the Council is used by the administration as a mult i -purpo s e body. Councillors are given many of the functions of the old nat ive officials - to communic ate directions and bring people out for public works . As elected officials they are as sumed to represent the wishes of their constituents ( as in the amount of tax to be ass e s sed), but they are often c alled upon to spe ak on matters which are entirely new to the people, for example, the proposed repeal of the Native Women ' s Pro ­tection Ordinance, of which the Councillors and their electorates have never heard : their reply was - it would be a good thing if we had such a law . The Council is , indeed, a convenient forum for all officers - medical, educ ational, agricultural, police and native affairs : they speak for a few moments to the Counc il meeting, informing counc illors of change s and developme nts , and then trust them to inform their constituent s ; or they ask the Counc il to provide funds for the improvement of Aid Po sts and schools, train an agricultural worker or haul logs for bridge re ­construction - all s ervic es otherwise provided by the adminis ­tration .

The Chimbus immediately developed a taste for Europe an goods and depend upon the government to provide the means of attainment . For they have no other source of information or stimulus, no chanc e of independently learning of new pos s ibilitie s . Chimbus are not prevent e d from entering new activities by a restraining social structure or by repre ssive beliefs . Every man can work, sell his crops or labour, trade, and become a leader . Training and source s of information are the limitations, not land shortage or natural re sourc e s . The people realize that they are almost entirely at the mercy of the administration .

Chimbus really have nothing to off er but their labour . They have long been the rec ipients of directions . At first this was dete rmined by a single Native Affairs Officer - his patrols to

3 8

establish law and order, his orders for road work . In the past ten years, and increasingly in the past five ye ars , these have been multiplied by the separate servic es of Departm ents of Educ ation, Agriculture , Public Health, Polic e and judiciary de­manding the attention of natives and their labour . People are c alled upon to prepare a garden for the Aid Post orderly, build a dining room for the school, listen to the coffee extens ion worker, help the counc illor build a house . The mis sion, too, re quire s ass embling for prayer, work on school and hospital buildings, and money c ontributions . Inevitably, some of the se demands conflict - not merely church and state , but he alth and agriculture , politic s and e ducation. Can we expect the Chimbus to adapt to the s e demands ?

Chimbu adults can perhaps be loosely divided into several groups, distinguished by age and expe rience . The oldest group were adults in the 1 9 3 0 ' s ; their e arly experienc e was in the unstable conditions of traditional life - illnes s attributed to mysterious cause s, tre at e d by herbs or sac rifice ; constant danger of raids, theft, fe ar of travelling beyond the bounds of friendship . When we drove on a new road through the territory of several neighbouring and formerly hostile· tribes , and reported this trip to an old man, he said that he would be afraid to go among such dange rous strangers ; the expanding range of young people amazes their elders . These olde r people saw the first Europeans and their goods when they we re alre ady mature -they were asked to stop tribal fighting and submit to Australian administration . They have gone to mis sions, used new tools, e aten new foods, put on clothes, built slightly different houses, sold vegetable s and grown and proc es sed coffee for s ale . They use money, pay t axes , vote for the Local Gove rnment Council and the House of Assembly. One or two of the most adaptable have remained loc al leade rs, become entrepreneurs in new contexts . They vividly r ec all the battles of their younger days, and they continue to plan and organize the c e remonies which remain a focus of interest . But Chimbu has neve r been dominated by a gerontocracy, and most of the olde r men have retired from active le adership . Until the e st ablishment of the Loc al Gove rnment Counc il in 1 9 59 men of this type were the backbone of Administration - the Tultuls and Luluais who mobilized people for government sponsored public works and took trouble s to the government office for settlement . As they aged and died, they were replac e d by younger men who per -

39

formed much the same functions , perhaps with greater vigour but rarely with greater unde rstanding of the purpo se of Adminis ­tration .

The men who were children in the 1 9 3 0 ' s s aw and heard about tribal fights , but most of their lives have been unde r Aus ­tralian Administration . Only a few of them have had even a little miss ion schooling, but many served as labourers and carriers during the war and have had a glimps e of place s out s ide Chimbu . Some have been polic emen and interpreters - giving more contact with government aims . The s e experienc e s instill an awe of European ways , an impre ss ion of wealth and skill without any understanding of the proc e sses of production. They are, I think, the basis of cargo belief . An att itude of myste ry surrounds the white man ' s things for such people . Our disc arded bits of t in and broken part s of primus stoves were e agerly taken by people of this group and preserved as specimens of white culture . After many ye ars of life on the main Highlands road, they leave their work to gape at passing cars . Whenever a plane lands at Kundiawa (now several times a day) a c rowd gathe rs to look at it , and I have often seen people gingerly feel­ing the met al of a Land Rove r . Men of this group us e money with little notion of its value , c;ind are most influential leaders in present enterprises . The Member of the Legislative Counc il for the New Guine a Highlands ( 1 9 6 1 - 64 ) and perhaps half of the Councillors are of this group .

The next younger group has been born s inc e the arrival of Europe ans . Most of them have spent some time in some sort of school - mostly mis sion schools taught by s emi- literate catechist s . They attend church fairly regularly, have used European medic al s e rvic e s, have been familiar with metal tools s ince childhood, and have a few technic al skills - building with nails , coffe e process ing . Pe rhaps mo st of them have spent some time in employment under Europe ans as labourers on plantations or as domestic se rvants, but the se skills have little plac e at home . They spe ak pidgin English and c an count their los s e s and winnings at cards . Somet ime s they become impatient with the ir elde rs, but many enthusiast ic ally joined in the pre ­liminaries for a tradit ional pig feast in defiance of another faction ' s urging that efforts be concentrated upon economic de ­velopment . Their value s are confused - they are half committed to a new way of life without an educ ational o r economic foundation

4 0

for it, and they s e e that traditional c eremony provides exc ite ­ments lacking in the new activities .

It is only a few of the youngest adults who can be con­s idered literate - who have had some ye ars of schooling and unde rstand some English . Occasional favoure d boys in the late 19 50 ' s were selecte d for training a s teachers, carpenters , medic al orderlies , etc . by mis sion and government . Now of course there are some youths in training or in s econdary schools in other parts of the territory who may return with a genuine understanding of Western values and technology . Any such training has much to contend with . Perhaps the most educ ated man in his 2 0 's in Naregu, a carpente r ' s as sistant, told me a few months ago that he had always acc epted the teaching of the church and his school t eachers about sorcery, but that he had listened to a sorc e ress ' story about her powers and spirit helper, and he believes her now .

Women, even unde r thirty, live a more traditional life . Far fewer of them have been to school at all, o r had any experience outs ide the are a . Their outlook more closely approaches that of men who are older and have not travelled . Their days are mostly spent in gardening, cooking and cq.ring for pigs and children . They have fewer clothe s, and they are washed les s fre quently . Before they had cloth, Chimbu skins were protecte d from the cold by a layer of pig gre ase . If this is to be w ashe d off, it must be replac ed by suitable warm c lothing . But the women are not opposed to this . A woman ' s club was rec ently organized and has been very popular : women regularly cont ribute the shillings they earn by s elling vegetables so that s ewing machine s can be purchased, and there w as gre at competit ion for plac es in the sewing clas s . But I fe ar that it will be many years before women and children are c lean and warmly clad .

Hous ing is a serious problem . Chimbu hous es are low wood and cane structures , earth floored, thoroughly charred by a fire whose smoke filters through the thatch; occasionally there is a platform bed, mat s or blankets , and a rew garment s and tools are stored there . Half o f the woman ' s house i s us ed by the pigs . It i s infested with rat s and fle as, often malarial mosquitoes , and the inhabitants usually have worms and sc abies . The convent ional practice of pig husbandry involve s fee ding pigs

4 1

in the afternoon, and frequent afte rnoon rain encourage s sharing a house with the pigs . A low e arth floored house with a constant fire is well adapted to keeping pigs and unclothe d people w arm on highland night s . It is not suited to clean clothing, uncontaminated food, coffee proc es s ing, or homework . A lighter, raised building with proper storage plac e s would require different mat erials, in­sulat ion, another type of fireplace for cooking and many blankets . Some men now use native bush materials for a different style of hous e, and have higher hous es where the ir belongings keep clean, but to live in such dwellings they must have some technologic al help and be able to buy blankets and stores . Dome stic habits and sit ing of hous es are both involve d, as the pigs must still be fed and hous ed, and the women are most conce rned in pig c are .

Improvement in hygiene and better hous ing have not be en actively promote d by any servic e in New Guine a . It i s a matter re quiring joint cons ide ration by medic al, agricultural and native affairs officers , and sources and costs of mat e ri als are involved . A general educ ational program would be needed . A s we have seen, change in Chimbu has been piec eme al, and housing and standard of living are not the re sponsibility of any one service .

What can all this have to do with peanuts - or rather with the introduction of a specific food, peanut paste , as a part of the regular diet to improve nutrition of infants and young children ? How shall Chimbu habit s and att itude s change ? It i s e asy t o see that they have the normal range of human intelligence and that they c an le arn new technique s . But traditional habits persist, and only coercion or genuine le arning that anothe r method is superior can change them.

Papua- New Guinea has a high i:nfant mortality . Chimbus do not want their babie s to die, but they are not preoccupied with health problems . And they do not see that their traditional methods of child c are are inade quate . Onc e s everal ye ars ago I s aw an Infant Welfare sister ask the mothe r of a puny Chimbu baby to go to the ho spital for supplementary milk . The mothe r replied that she had sever al children - all had been small infants but are healthy and grew well late r . No, she wo uld not get a milk supplement . Is she any diffe rent from the ordinary hous e ­wife elsewhere in the world ?

Chimbus have s een that Europe an medicine can some -

4 2

time s cure illnes s, but they do not understand the c auses of health or of death . To participate in the pe anut program they would have to take the results on faith, and it is not so simple an adjustment as it might at first appear . It re quires planting on a regular sche dule, harvesting on schedule, cooking, grinding, storing and s ett ing aside - all new to Chimbu mothers .

Chimbus like nuts and grow them for food and for s ale . But planting of all vegetables is a rather c asual affair . When the garden is prepared - and almost any other activity may take precedenc e over garden wo rk - the planting materials are brought in and planted bit by bit . Planned pe anut production for infant fe eding hardly fit s in with this pattern .

There is nowhere in the culture a foundation for such a practice as the regular addition of peanut paste balls to the infant diet . Babies are nursed fre quently but not on a time schedule ; children munch snacks at any time and share in the family meals . Food is not stored; the day ' s food is harvested from one or mor e produc ing gardens . The family awaits the cooking, shares it immediately, and the livestock are also fed . Sto rage o f peanut paste balls and giving them t o the b aby one by one is incongruous in a Chimbu woman ' s hous e : the pigs, or the insects, or the other children would be after any food in storage .

It se ems to me that any attempt to improve infant nutrition must be part of a general program of improved living standards and community development . Genuine and permanent change requires fundamental education - people must not me rely w ant fat babies or s aucepans or motor cars but these things must be part of a changing way of life . Chimbu life has c ertainly changed in some particulars, but the present desires for im­proved standards of living, skills , peac e and progress as yet are not supporte d by an understanding of Western life . Before mothers c an be relied upon to give children pe anut balls every day they must see that this is as part of general welfare . And inc re as e d protein is not enough to solve Chimbu health problems

they will still suffer from dis ease s unrelated to malnutrition; the peanut - fe eding mother will lose her b aby from pneumonia, and this will not give mothers confidence in peanuts or in the health program as a whole .

My conclusion must by now be obvious enough - a

4 3

primitive group may change a gre at de al in a generation . Their activities can be forcibly changed, and in some c irc umstanc e s their interests may readily adapt to progre s sive activitie s . But patterns of work and organi z ation persist . An integrated pro­gram of community development may have a gre at effect on adults as well as children . The proper education of youth will have an effect upon the whole community in the next generation. But piec emeal development i s confus ing to the people, and any spec ific introduction needs to be viewed in relation to cultural practic es as a whole .

44

Plate 3 . A group talking outside a men ' s house .

Plate 4 . A group of women cook for a fe ast .

4 5

Discussion (following Dr . Brown ' s paper )

Unknown: In the New Guinea Highlands some women use cotton clothes which are often filthy . Would it not be better for them to us e gras s skirts until such time as they can make better use of Europe an clothes ?

Brown : I think the grass skirts are as filthy as the cotton dre s s e s . Pe rhaps the gras s skirts leave more space to cove r the body with pig fat .

Unknown : What do you cons ider to be the main inc en­tives for the s e people to take up Western ideas ?

Brown : Do you infer that they need to b e encouraged to do so, becaus e they do not . They are very ke en on ac quiring Europe an goods and are willing to work moderately hard to obtain them . On the whole they have accepte d the notion of peac e , progre ss , and development .

Dick : The que stion of money in the Chimbu se ems to be an enigma . These people are avid for money, but this does not e xplain the c asual way in which they disperse it . Two ye ars ' wage s from work on the coast is often lost in one night ' s gambling .

Brown: There is a gre at differenc e betwe en our appre -ciation of money value and that of the Chimbu. They do not have the money measuring notion. They do not have the "t ime e quals money e quals purchase price of goods " sort of e quation in mind, that we have . They c e rtainly get wildly enthusiastic about gambling . I have s een a boy loos e his month ' s w age s in half a minute and yet go happily away .

Unknown : The Chimbu people do not understand the Western economy. I wonder if they will be less happy when they do . The economic outlets for them are working on a plantation for a w age of £ 1 . 1 0 . 0 a month, or growing coffee, when if one works very hard, and has to look after subsistanc e as well, the best one c an do is to become very poor . When they under­stand the Weste rn economy better, I wonder whether they will be more prepared o r le ss pr epare d to enter it .

4 6

Brown: They have been bitterly disappointed by the re ­sults from the coffe e work to date . However this does not seem to have discouraged them from planting coffee, or harvesting it, just the rever se . There is a great increas e in planting coffee bec ause, they say, i t is the only cash crop we have .

Chairman : A situation not unknown to dairy farmers in Australia .

Unknown: Is there any instruction given to New Guinean women about methods of bringing up their children ?

Brown: There is an Infant Welfare Service to some plac e s . A sister come s around once a month, puts the babies on a scale, gives inj ections whe re nec essary, and she may treat the scabies, but she does not give any instruction.

Unknown : Are there loc al 'medic ine men ' to whom mothers turn in t ime of sickne s s ?

Brown : There are no competitive practitioners such as there are in some other soc ieties .

Unknown : Some of the c ases of malnutrition in New Guine a are as sociated with the absenc e of the husband and possibly with an overworked mothe r . What Government measure s are taken to combat this ?

Brown: In the rec ruiting for coastal work, the Govern­ment tries to restrict the rec ruits to unmarrie d young men . It does not always succ ee d bec aus e some men are so keen that they go unde r false name s . Casual labour within the Highlands c annot be controlled in this way . I have not notic ed much serious difficulty bec ause the husbands are away, bec ause some other male in the family usually helps out .

Unknown : Have you seen any cargo cults in the Chimbu ?

Brown: No, nothing that would be properly called a cargo cult .

sory . Unknown : I s primary e duc ation voluntary or compul-

4 7

Brown: It is voluntary in the s ense that the teache r will open the school for the new year and the parents who get there with their child first get their children into school . No one e lse goes to school .

4 8

But where do we go from here ?

H . C . Brookfield

(Australian Nat ional Univers ity, Canberra)

Improvement of infant nutrition is part, but only a part, of the wide r is sue of soc ial and economic development . An "integrated approach to nutrition and society" demands the inte ­gration of the problem of nutrition into the wider que stion of the general bette rment of Chimbu life and indeed, as Paula Brown has noted, it is hard to s e e how attack on one facet only of the problem can be succ essful . As a geographer I shall discuss the betterment of Chimbu life in relation to the available productive re sourc es, and of the me ans to hand for the conve rsion of these re sourc es into goods and money. I shall first briefly desc ribe the Chimbu agricultural economy, and the change s to which it has been subjected over the five ye ars during which I have been observing the Chimbu, then I shall analyse some of the problems of that economy, and finally offer a few tentative sugge stions .

The Chimbu economy

Chimbu are agriculturalist s , who depend on the produc e of their gardens, pasture s and groves for subs istenc e . Only a very small proportion of the ir consumption is derive d from wild resourc e s : even their hous es are built mainly of the wood of planted c asuarina trees . Sweet potatoes are the dominant c rop, and the basis of eve ry meal, but a wide range of sub ­s idiary c rops i s grown. Among these sugar c ane and bananas occupy signific ant ac reage s, while taro, yams, a few c as s ava, a range of beans and green vegetables , and some introduced food c rops are also grown. Chimbu distinguish two main type s of c ropped area - the open plots mainly under sweet potatoes, and the mixed plots under a wide variety of inter - planted c rops . The produc e of the latte r is used wholly for human consumption, but a signific ant proportion of the sweet potatoes is fe d to pigs . A grown pig consume s at le ast as much food a day as a grown man; at a gue ss some two - thirds of a pig ' s food is cult ivated swe et potatoe s , and the remaining third comes from grazing and rooting for worms in the unenclosed pasture s . When preparing for the great periodic pig c eremonies, Chimbu have at least

4 9

thre e or four grown pigs pe r family, and thus at the peak, half the produc e of the sweet potato gardens is fe d to pigs . The re are also planted tre e c rops, princ ipally the nut pandanus and the oil pandanus . The former, growing only above about 6, O O O feet, i s planted i n extens ive groves , the latter grows at lower altitudes and in smaller clumps . Other indigenous tree c rops occur as individuals .

This varied agriculture, with its tillage of the soil, e laborate field- drainage, and extensive systems of fenc ing to s eparate the gardens from the pigs, was conducted by in­dividuals cultivating their own plots of land within the territories of soc ial groups which combined for defence of the whole . The Chimbu concept of land tenure is that all arable land is the property of the man who first cultivated it, his heirs and ass igns . There is no group tenure of any such land . Individual plots are sc attered, and a man may have from three or four to as many as fifteen separate parc els of land .

A plot being brought into cultivation is cle are d, fenced, ditched and tilled, and then planted, generally by vegetative propagation . From first cle aring to planting may occupy several months , and swe et potatoe s then take a further thre e to e ight months from planting to maturity, depending on soil and alt itude . Harvesting i s progre ss ive : only the mature tubers are lifted, and the immature tubers are left in the ground, so that e ach plant is normally harvested several time s before being uproote d . At lowe r altitudes the harvesting pe riod may occupy from six to twelve months, but from 7, O OO feet up to the absolute limit close to 9 , O O O feet the period is only thre e or four months . The land is then commonly re - prepared and re - planted, e ither imme diately o r after a short re st . It is not unusual for five, six or even more cons ecutive plantings to be made on the s ame land, including one or more plantings of the mixed- garden c rops at no fixed stage in the cycle . Ult imately, after from one or two to ten or more years under cultivation, the land will be re ste d, under planted c asuarina trees wherever the land i s suitable for them . These c asuarinas emphasise the holde r ' s claim to the land, provide wood, and build up the fertility of the soil - they add humus and nitrogen, and keep down undes irable gras s e s . After a fallow period of from two or thre e to as many as twenty- five or more years, the land is again c leared and re - planted . Thus some land is cultivated far longer than

50

Plate 5 .

Plate 6 .

Men digging ditches and spreading subsoil to prepare garden be-ds .

Peanuts as part of c eremonial distribution.

5 1

it is fallowed, other land is cultivated only rarely . Factors involved include the quality of the land, the rate of weed growth, the amount of land available to th e cu ltivato r, th e sh ifting interests of individuals and groups , and variations in individual ente rprise and vigour . In modern times a conc entration of residenc e toward the main road in central Chimbu has led to much less fre quent cultivation on some remoter land, notwith­standing its inherent quality . In gene ral, current cultivation unde r food c rops seems to vary between 0. 2 and 0. 3 ac res pe r head of the whole population with a tendency to inc rease due to s ales of foodstuffs and larger food intake : Chimbu informants are unanimous that the diet is both more abundant and more varied than in former time s .

There have been many modific ations to the traditional pattern in rec ent years . The range of c rops has inc re ased . New sweet potato varieties have been introduce d, and one highe r­yielding variety introduce d about 1 5 years ago now covers perhaps a third of the ac reage . Even sinc e 1 9 6 2 two new varieties have entered : the s e are probably sweet variet ies of Ame rican origin disseminated from a plant ation near Goroka . In all more than 4 0 varieties are encountered, though two of the se dominate over­whelmingly in almost all locations . Xanthosoma taro and new varieties of Colocasia have also entered the area since 1 9 3 3 , together with new varieties of corn, yam, beans and a range of new c rops including several European ve get ables , new tree c rops - e specially the pawpaw - and one important new garden c rop, the peanut . Peanuts are grown both for cash and food, and have also ac quire d c eremonial significance in nut presentations . The highly prized nuts of the mountain pandanus, rich in oil, fruit irregularly, and se asons of flush are marke d by large - sc ale presentations between ne ighbouring groups - in a sens e perhaps , a devic e to distribute a surplus . Not all Chimbu have pandanus tre es , or land suitable for their cultivation, and peanut s have come to be acc epte d as a substitute in these ceremonial inter ­group presentations . Peanuts have, however, a slight agronomic disadvantage as compared with othe r introduc ed c rops : they must be planted to a rain, otherwis e a proportion of the seed pe anuts will rot in the ground . The Chimbu climate is weakly se asonal, but with a very irregular and unpredictable occurrenc e of drought ; it i s not therefore pos s ible t o b e c e rtain of the right time for plant ing .

5 2

All these introductions have, however, be en eclipsed by coffee, which was first introduc ed in 1 9 5 5 . The ac reage in our survey area at Mintima has inc r eased at an almost constant rate sinc e 1 9 58, and a population of 1 0, OOO in the Waiye Council Are a now has ove r 4 00, O O O tre e s . Sinc e about 1 9 59 coffe e has be en by far the princ ipal sourc e of cash income to the c entral Chimbu, and though much is badly plante d, still more badly maintained, and almost all badly prepared fo r s ale, coffee has become a major us e r of land. Much land that was forme rly the main foo d c rop area for the people near Mint ima i s now devote d t o coffee, with the result that s inc e 1 96 1 incr easing areas of long- neglecte d and largely inferior land have been brought into cultivation for food c rops . During this period, inde ed, the introduction and adoption of coffee has b egun a s e ries of revolutionary changes in Chimbu agriculture and economy, the nature of which is only now becoming apparent .

The consequenc e s of the introduction o f coffee

Chimbu agriculture, like the whole of Chimbu society, is undergoing rapid but uneven change . The patte rn of land use , the system of evaluating land, the allocation of t ime to different kinds of work - the se have changed, but the basic diet is not greatly modified, and there have b een no major changes in agricultural methods . Money resources are still slender, and the coffee income is only between £6 and £7 pe r annum per grow e r . De spite the ready acc eptanc e of c ash c ropping the r e i s seve r e disappointment at the re sults . Furthermore, coffee has become a major c rop only to that proportion of the Chimbu with good land betwe en 5, O O O and 6, 500 feet, and with acc e s s to the main road . For some 2 5, O O O or 3 0, O O O people whose land is almost all at higher altitudes , and for some 50, O O O who live in remoter areas in the south of the subdistrict away from the roads, the re is still no reliable sourc e of cash income . Cabbage s and onions were introduc ed as cash c rops on the high - alt itude land some three to fou r ye ars ago, but the market is very limited . Only in 1 96 3 has a long-he ralde d programme o f pyrethrum plant ­ing been initiated, with hope s of a stable market .

Coffee has pre s ented the c entral Chimbu with many prob ­lems as well as benefits, and its spread has made evident some basic w e aknes s e s in the agrarian system. Exc es sive dispersal of holdings involves individuals in much walking time, and

5 3

CJl �

1 MILE ( approx) - SEMI- CONTINUOUS

COFFEE

THE MINT IMA AREA 1 9 5 8 - 6 3

� �ANU�G � o �r"

(/'"""' 6,5�

flTI] �� �ROfAS -- FENCES

Figure 3 . The Mint ima area .

1963

LARGE NEW FOOD CROP AREA OF MINTIMA PEOPLE

Sbtch Map - Outline from an AJr Photograph

discourage s the maintenance of fence s and the we eding of grass and weeds in the gardens, with the result that much productive land is abandoned before it needs to be . It now seems clear that there is no continuous decline in swe et potato yields with suc c e s ­s ive plantings o n the s ame land . Evidence, including that of a soil- exhaustion trial at the Aiyura Experimental Station, ne ar Kainantu, sugge sts that yields are well -maintained after several years on continuously cultivated land . In c entral Chimbu it is however mainly the drier, easily- c le are d land that is maintained in food- c rop cult ivation for long periods; w etter sites are soon abandoned to the quick- growing we eds . However, many of these wette r s ites give high yields of coffee, and have b.ecome preferred loc ations . As a re sult of this preference, and of the scatter of plots , the labour of keeping widely dispersed and small coffee groves c lean of weeds i s taxing the available time and energy of many Chimbu farmers .

F enc e s against pigs are also perishable, and become weak and are e as ily broken afte r about three years . Under pre - coffee conditions, i t see ms that it was often the life o f the fenc es that limited the period of c ropping in the c ycle . Onc e coffee is planted, however, the fenc es must be continuously maintained, and since coffee is generally planted on land that has already borne food- c rops, the result has been to re quire maintenanc e of many fenc e s that would formerly have been abandone d . Taking into account the high proportion of a Chimbu ' s t ime spent in just waiting around, and the unfamiliarity of any sort of routine , it will be cle ar why many Chimbu are confused by the work demands of their new crop .

In the early years of coffee there was rationalization of the fenc ing system ( Map 2 ) . Lengthy sinuosities were straightened out, isolated areas incorporated into the main enclosed block, and move s made to tidy up the whole pattern . However, the absorp­tion of food- c rop land by coffee , togethe r with a steady increase in the demand for swe et potatoe s by a growing he rd of pigs, has nec e ssitated the enclo sure of large new areas for food crops, and between 1 9 58 and 1 9 6 2 the enclo sed area extended southwards by nearly a mile . Dispersal of food- c rop activities , and concen­tration of residenc e into the coffee areas so that men could watch their coffee , led to some neglect of the old fenc e s, and in 1 9 6 3 the inevitable occurred . Large areas of land were invaded by pigs and much garden land was roote d ove r . It has not yet been

5 5

possible to secure the co- operat ion necessary to rebuild the fenc e s on the old lines , and the simultaneous inc rease in the nurnq�r o.L.�}g.1:? . . and in the work of c aring for the m has l�d . to a .. . ·

return to old patterns, with long avenues le ading deeply into the enclosed are a so that pigs and gardens and people could be brought c loser together . The result is disinte gration of the relatively rational system of 1 9 6 2 into a chaos of individual and small- group fenc e s, with many internal fenc e s within the en­close d area to protect individual gardens . All this represents a gre at increase in the amount of labour nec essary, and creates a s ituation which can well lead to yet worse chaos in two to three ye ars ' time . There is the refo re some evidence to suggest that, due largely to the intrusion of coffee and other new activi ­ties without any corresponding change in other aspects of the agrarian structure, the Chimbu farming economy is entering a period of, at best, confus ion .

The cycle of hope and frustration

The course of events in c entral Chimbu sinc e 1 9 58 is best characte rised as a cycle of hope and frustration. At the beginning there w as great enthusiasm . Impo ss ible hopes were entertained as a result of the introduction of coffee . There were other big projects , including the reclamation of a large area of waste land for the growing of other cash c rops, fruit and tobacco ; a dairy herd was proposed, spec ific ally to supply milk for children_, and men talked in expans ive terms of turning all sorts of re sourc es into money. Ide as aros e spontaneously, and men and women undertook unaccustomed and large scale tasks with enthusiasm . There c an have been few periods in the histo ry of any part of New Guine a when there w as gre ater popular fervour for economic progre s s .

As e arly as 1 9 5 9, howeve r, there was some disappoint­ment in the small financial returns obtained from coffee , and depre ssion deepened as the coffe e price continued to s ag in 1 9 6 0 and 1 9 6 1 . There w as no diminution in the rate of planting, for the Chimbu could see no othe r me ans of gaining wealth but coffee , but enthusiasm dec lined . The grandiose propos als of 1 9 59 either failed or fade d away . The large cash c rop garden has s ettled down to sweet potatoe s . A nearby me dical aid post, built by the Counc il in what was expecte d to become a c entre of activity and settlement, is still surrounded by only sparse popu-

56

latio n . The da iry herd propo s a l r a n into di fficultie s and was forgotten . By 1 9 6 2 and 1 9 6 3 c entral Chimbu regarded their dependence on coffe e with alarm, and reports that the Govern­ment was discouraging new planting becaus e of the marketing situation re ached the Chimbu as fe ars that the Government might one day de stroy their coffee and leave them with nothing . For the Chimbu out s ide the coffee areas hope of better time s became a matter of c lutching at straws . Rec ently a tortuous mountain road has been built into the hills in northern Chimbu . The people along it, who have hithe rto had no hope of c ash income, now expect to make large sales of onions , cabbages and other vegetables to buyer s who will come up the ro ad; present traffic is however limited to one or two Government Land Rovers a week .

Hopes run so high that disappointment is inevitable . Chimbu dream of a time when they will all have iron- roofe d hous es and many will have Land Rovers, when good clothes will be within their me ans, and they will live as Europeans now live . But though a few men with large coffe e holdings have amas sed considerable sums of money, the majority rec eive only paltry income s of between £5 and £ 1 0 a ye ar, and this is rapidly dis ­sipated o n Counc il tax, a few poor purchases , gambling, and the inflated demands of the internal economy . Thus the purchas e of a bride for one of their members means that a group of 20 to 40 men must ass emble sums of at least £ 1 0 0 . The s e and similar calls mean that slender c ash re serves must be carefully hus ­banded . For the majority of Chimbu the betterment of life due to the inj ection of money i s yet small, but none the less they see money as the only road by which better time s c an come to them . Add to this state o f mind the confusion resulting from the graft­ing of coffe e onto their traditional agriculture, and i t needs little imagination to re alise that receptiveness to innovations , the benefits of which are not altogethe r c lear to them, is at a low ebb .

The contribution of the Administration

It is , unfortunately, nec essary to sugge st that so great a disappointment as the Chimbu have suffered since 1 9 58 need not have been their lot . Many Chimbu are aware of the paucity of Europe an staff in their area, of the limited size of the loc al market, of the exec rable nature of their roads, and of distre s sing

5 7

inconsistenc ies and fre quent change s of direction in the advice and exhortation they receive from the several departments of Government . They are aware of the se things, and discouraged by them, and some few are made seriously resentful . But they are not yet aware that, on a population basis, Chimbu is in rec eipt of an extremely low level of service s even by Territory standards . The Chimbu subdistrict is the mo st populous in the Te rritory, with more people than the whole districts of New Britain and New Ireland put together; it has a highe r density of rural population than any .othe r area of e qual o r greater size in the whole of Melanesia . But only in 1 9 6 3 was the Subdistrict raised to District Officer status . The 1 6 0, O O O inhabitants have only a single qualified doctor, far below the Te rritory average . When the e stablishment is fille d, there are five agricultural officers in the subdistrict today, but there was for long only one . The road grant is extremely small, and for a variety of re asons the Chimbu section of the main highlands road is the wo rst of any in the whole 4 2 0 mile s from Lae to Wabag . There is no airstrip capable of taking a DC - 3 ; even though the Kerowagi st rip could readily be raised to this standard, development has been c oncentrated instead at the original centre at Kundiawa : this strip, which in topography is the neare st approach to an airc raft c arrie r on dry land, is hemme d round by hills and c an neve r take an airc raft of any size . Consequently, Chimbu is he avily penalized in terms of freight rates and services by comparison with are as to east and west . The only significant capital i�ve stment from without, apart from buildings on the government station, has been the e stablishment in 1 9 6 2 of a coffee factory at the Chimbu river, by private European interests . It is now propos ed that this factory be ac quired by a Chimbu co- operat ive, entirely by loc al funds and without any external aid or loan . Bec ause of staff sho rtage s it was not pos s ible for the Department of Agriculture to provide any signi­fic ant field guidance to Chimbu coffee growers between the initial plantings in 1 9 5 5 and about 1 9 6 1 or 1 9 6 2 , and only now is any attempt being made to centralize and standardize the pre ­paration of coffee beans for s ale - but again the funds for the nece s s ary buildings and staff must come from local sourc e s . It i s not nic e t o s ay the se things , but one cannot discus s the present mood of frustration in Chimbu without referenc e to the very limited amount of ext ernal aid received .

5 8

Overpopulation ?

All this is the more surprising when it is rememb ered that s inc e at least 1 9 56 the view has been current that the Chimbu area is suffer ing from ove rpopulation, and furthermore that for several ye ars Chimbu was thought to be the only area in the Te rritory with this problem. But not until 1 9 6 2 was an offic ial survey undertaken to determine the nature and scale of ove r­population . Meanwhile Paula Brown and I have attempted to obtain a quantitative impre s s ion of the man- land balance in one limited are a for ac ademic purpo ses having nothing to do with public policy, and have tentat ive ly extrapolated our method over a wider area of Chimbu . 1 We found that some small groups, even within areas of only average dens ity, are short of land, but that it is po ssible for individuals and groups to obtain sufficient land from others who are better off, by various traditional me ans . Though the s ituation is tighter in other parts of Chimbu, espec ially the high- alt itude areas, there has been short - distanc e emigration from these are as for generations . So far as food­c rop land i s conc erned, we do not think it is yet impos sible for any Chimbu to obtain acc e s s to suffic ient ground, but the de­mands of c ash c ropping, and espec ially for tre e c rops which may not normally b e cultivated on borrowed land, are leading to rapid changes . There is a nee d to open new land for ambitious and ene rgetic individuals in the not distant future , but we are fearful le st offic ial pre - occupation with re settlement as a solution may lead to neglect of the pos s ibilities for development still un­touched in Chimbu itself .

Res ettlement has been unde r desulto ry discuss ion for ye ars , and various areas have been canvas sed . Active land s ettlement surveys are now in progress in other parts of New Guinea, with Chimbus in mind . However, it is worth rec alling that the Land Settlement Scheme in Fiji, now unde r way, is expected to cost a million pounds ste rling a ye ar for ten ye ars in direct costs alone, and Fiji has a far smaller population than New Guine a, and the advantage of an exist ing network of communic a­tions , good topographic and c adastral maps, soil surveys, and

1 H . C . Brookfi eld and Paula Brown, Struggle for land : agricul­ture and group territories among the Chimbu of the New Guinea highlands, Melbourne (O. U. P . and A. N . U. ) 1 9 63 .

59

wide spread literacy . Land settlement in New Guine a will pro­bably cost at least £2, O OO per s ettler, all costs included . So mass ive a scheme as would be required to alleviate population pre s sure would be costly indee d . To hazard a gues s , I would sugge st that it would be nec e s s ary to reduce the present popula­tion of 1 6 2 , O O O to around 1 0 0, O O O in five years : then it would be possible to c lose c e rtain occupied are as on very steep unstable slope s and simultaneously do something to improve living con­ditions for the remaining population . But this would cost not le s s than £3 0, O O O, O O O and there would st ill remain 1 00, O O O Chimbus, plus their natural inc re ase , t o claim funds for local development . The justification for land settlement schemes in the Territory - and it is a real justification - lies rathe r in making productive the undeveloped resourc e s of New Guine a, with the aid of such energetic individuals , from whatever are a, as wish to participate .

Po ssibilitie s of local betterment-

Pos sibilitie s of betterment in Chimbu it self have c e rtainly not been exhausted . With the exc eption of some trials now being undertaken by the Divis ion of Medic al Research, no extensive study has yet been made of the pos sibility of introducing improve d - e ither highe r - yielding or more nutritious - varieties of any of th e main b asic food crops, of evolving methods of storing or proc ess ing the se crops, of the pos sible effects of fertilizers on yields, or even of the different poss ible c rop rotations . No inve stigation at all has be en made of the poss ibility of making pig husbandry more intensive . At pre sent this aspect of Chimbu production is ve ry wasteful of resourc es, both of land and labour, for very small returns . The introduction of new fodder c rops would surely repay investigation, togethe r with the fenc ing in of the pigs, instead of the c rops, and using more durable fenc ing materials ; pig hous ing and health are susc eptible of gre at im­provement, with the object of reducing the pre sent heavy los s es from mortality. While one could sc arc ely expect in the short run to achieve anything so efficient as the ec onomy of the Chines e pig­farme rs of Singapore Island, it should surely be pos sible to increase output of t hi s high - prot ein s ourc e of foo d with much greater economy of land and labour .

A wide range of fruit and vegetables c an be grown in Chimbu at different altitudes and on diffe rent soils ; re solute

6 0

attempts to solve the marketing problems could gre atly aid ex­ploitation of this po ssibility; it do es not s eem imposs ible to develop an industry that, together with adj acent areas, could in time support a cannery . At high altitudes, and above the pre sent tree line, are extensive stands of pandanus, producing nuts rich in oil, but there has as yet been no survey at all of thes e nuts as a possible economic resourc e . Nor for that matter does any thought seem to have been given to other possibilities for making us e of this high mountain country .

Improved communications are fundamental to everything . The large re source s of limestone in Chimbu are among the pure st in the Te rritory : lime could be us ed for the stabiliz ation of road surfaces to provide smooth highways capable of c arrying heavy traffic ; lime is also a potential industrial resourc e from which could flow a revolution in building and constructional materials . Improvement in roads, and the upgrading of Kerowagi airstrip, could make pos s ible a substantial reduction in freight costs , to the gre at benefit of all forms of trade and development .

An immense amount could be achieved by the rationaliza­tion of scattered land holdings into coherent blocks . Such a move would both fac ilitate and demand the development of spec ialized farmers , e ach conducting one dominant enterpris e , and Papua­New Guinea could have much to learn from the energetic work carried out especially in Kenya in the past dec ade . In an area of high population dens ity, a side result of land consolidation would ce rtainly be to c reate a landless minority, who would provide a population of wage - e arne rs and potential settle rs ; this considera­tion might give pause to some, but it should be reme mbered that population inc rease and the rising land demands of cash c ropping make inevitable the emergency of a land- poor class in the near future, and this without any improvement in local living standards such as might flow from farm consolidation .

Conclusion

Above all there is gre at need for new drive . Chimbu are impatient for progress and weary of dis appointment . They c an re adily s e e the benefits that money can bring, but are growing tired of unsuc c e ssful ende avour and of frequent exhortation by the Government and their pro - Government le aders , who constantly demand additional work on ever- changing proj ects . Active

6 1

resentment is growing among a significant minority, even though the majority still adhere to the faith that the ir labours will bring rewards in the end, and that the advice of the white man is almost always good .

It i s against this background that the peanut project nee ds to be viewed . There c an be no doubt that the Chimbu are con­c e rned for the he alth and well- being of their children, but their thinking is e s s entially financ ial : they see money as the only w ay to improveme nt of their lot . It does not yet occur to them that their diet i s nutritionally inade quat e : their talk is rather of the low price of coffee and the high cost of trade - store goods . There has c ertainly been an increase in the ve ry small number of plots planted to peanuts s ince 1 9 62 , perhaps a doubling in the Mintima area, but this is mainly in the hope of cash sale, e specially to the hospital . When inc re as e d planting le ads to s aturat ion of this market more pe anuts will be e aten, both by adults and by children, but planting may then decline . The fate of cabbages is a pointer : they were grossly planted in the hope of s ale in 1 9 6 2 . Many unsale able c abbages were c ertainly eaten, but many mo re were left in the ground and new planting is much re­duce d .

If confidenc e i s t o be restored, progres s made, and valuable introductions like the peanut project given a chanc e of succ e ss, there is need for a comprehens ive development programme, embracing health, housing, educ ation, agriculture, land tenure and employment, with a great inc reas e in the propor­tion of external aid, both technical and financial . Local resourc e s c annot provide the nec e s s ary capital, and will not be able t o do so in the fore seeable future . There is also a need to integrated planning and a determination of prioritie s . Something like a National Development Authority, cove ring not only settlement of new areas, but also, and princ ipally, the fulle r utiliz at ion of re sourc es among existing populations , is now long ove rdue in New Guine a .

Pledges are frequently reiterated that Australia means to create a measure of ec onomic viability in New Guine a before handing ove r politic al responsibility. But time is not endles s, and progress in this most populous area of the Territory i s so far s atisfactory to no one . One hope s that the effort made in Chimbu to date is not to be taken as the worth of these ple dges,

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for if this be so, then it were better that the pledges had never been made at all .

Footnote : October 1 9 6 5

In the nineteen months s ince this paper was written there have been a number of changes . The Kundiawa Coffee Soc iety Ltd . has come into being, with native shareholders and - finally - some recourse to bank loans . The Society has proved phenomenally suc c e ssful in the marketing of coffee, and better pric e s are being obtained . The re sult is a new w ave of en­thusiasm that has to some degree ove rtaken the w ave of dis ­illus ionment desc ribed in the paper . But the problem remains as here desc ribed for people living outside the coffee regions , and even within them dissatisfaction with the rate of progress continue s, most e sp.ec ially with the rate of progress in educat ion. The cycle of hope and frustration remains a cycle , and to conve rt it into an upward trend will demand constant new innovations for some years in order to generate and maintain enthusiasm, as well as to diversify the economy and the intere sts of the people .

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Discus sion ( following Dr . Brookfie ld ' s pape r )

Unknown : Sinc e pigs are in direct competition with c rops , it may be poss ible to supplant pigs with sheep, although it would be a treme ndous sociological problem . I know of the failure of sheep at Nondugl, but the failure there was due to factors that could be overcome .

Brookfield : A pig c ertainly derive s a portion of its food from a cult ivated area but she ep would require large grazing areas . It would be more economical to grow more fodder c rops for the pig, bec aus e this would free the pr esent pig- grazing areas for the c rops . With the exc eption of one species the natural gras s e s are not suitable for sheep .

Unknown: I wonder if the sheep has not been dismiss e d too summarily ? I am not sure that sheep re quire large areas of grazing, if you us e sheep in small plots grazing amongst tree c rops . We should think of sheep not so much for wool, but as an addit ional sourc e of protein .

Brookfield : That may be true, but until the pasture gras s problem is solve d one c annot make any firm announc e ­ment s o n this subject .

Dr . Frankel : I would have thought that the pig, being omniverous, was better suited to the ecology of the region than the sheep which, being a more s elective fee de r, would create many more difficulties .

Unknown : What was the training and e xperience of the 5 agricultural offic ers and do they live in the are a ?

Brookfield: They are dispe rsed at various Gove rnment stat ions . They have ei the r a Univers ity Agricultural degree , o r a diploma from an Agricultural Colle ge .

Mr . Dick : The Admini stration must alloc at e offic e rs throughout the Territory. In order to show the difficultie s of working in the are a, Gumine is about 2 5 miles by air from Kundiawa . The district has a population of 4 0, O O O and yet it is two days walk from Kundiawa where the ne arest agricultural

64

office r is stationed .

Unknown : What are the po ssibilities o f high alt itude tea ?

Brookfield: Tea experiments have been c arried out in New Guinea for seve ral ye ars, but it requires such care in cultivation that it is unsuitable for a native cash c rop at pre s ent . It has taken long enough to persuade the Chimbus that growing coffee is not s imply a matter of planting a s eed and picking the beans . Tea culture is under cons ideration but with the pr esent meagre resourc e s of agricultural officers let us not complic ate the s ituation by another c rop that will add to the difficultie s .

Sir George Currie : I would like to ask about land tenure . There are sugge stions that a better distribution of effort could be achieved by a redistribution of the land so as to bring together the small plots under one pe rson. I think this plan bristle s with legal difficultie s . Just how would the speake r set about the re­distribution of land which is related to better production, and a movement towards a viable economy ?

Brookfield : That, Sir George , is a very large que stion.

Chairman : The legal problem bristles with difficultie s , but so doe s any plan which touches land in New Guine a . Chimbu customs of land tenure are not fully unde rstood by the Lands Commis sion, and I don 't think by us . The basic principle s e ems to be that Chimbu land is individually held, but this is complicated by a serie s of rights held between individuals of the groups to which the owner belongs . Land belongs to the individual who first cultivated it, and transmitted to his heirs . Holdings ar e widely scattered within a sub - clan area and an individual may have plots scattered all over it . Distance s of over 3 miles between plots are quite common . There is an enormous amount of walking t ime involved . One also has the problem of fluctuating groups of individuals combining to cultivate land first in one area and then in another . The inefficienc y of this situation is toler able in a sub­s istence economy, but in a cash c rop economy it is becoming intole rable . As for how to do something about it I think note should be taken of the extensive work that has been done in East Africa since 1 9 50, where the land situation is similar to the c ase o f the Chimbu, and the land has been the subject o f a major re­organis ation, including the consolidation of holdings . The develop-

6 5

ment of spec ialis ed farms on different type s of land has, of course , re sulted in the inevitable c re ation of a proletariate , and this is not without problems . But I do not think we will get any­where with economic development in New Guinea under the pres ent system of land tenure . It is not well adapted to the new economic system, and completely ill - adapted to any system of improved animal husbandry. I do not advoc ate any particular programme, but notic e should be taken of suc c e s s and part ial succ ess elsewhere in land redistribution .

Unknown : Some may infer from Dr . Brookfield ' s re ­marks that the only hope for economic development in New Guinea is the infus ion of a large amount of capital from outs ide . Is there any hope of this happening ?

Brookfield : I am quite unable to answer .

Unknown : Do you think a collective - farm system such as has been institute d in Israel, would improve the economic status of the people ?

Brookfield : That is a nice question . My vision of a Chimbu co - operat ing in a collective farm w as so e xc rutiating, I had to shut my eyes tight for a minute . Given a radical pro ­gramme for e duc ation, given a man standing over a Chimbu with a whip the scheme might be a succ e s s , but without the s e things, no .

Unknown: With referenc e to the East African settlement schemes, there w as a good de al of coercion used . I do not think that any re - settlement scheme in the Chimbu would work without a good deal of coerc ion.

Brookfield : I quite agre e . I do not think coer c ion i s avoidable . It must form a part of any departure from the pre sent s ituation .

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Nutrition and economic progres s in the Chimbu

R. T. Shand

(Australian National University, Canbe rra)

Nutrition and economic progress are signific antly inter­re lated in many underdeveloped countries . On the one hand, rising per caput income s can permit improvements in the volume and balanc e of the diet, directly, through the opportunity to in­c rease food purchases, and indirectly, through the chanc e to accumulate capital which can enlarge the productive c apac ity of the individual produc er and eventually augment his income . On the other hand, better diets may have important effects upon the economy. The physic al c apacitie s of the work force may be rais ed, the life e xpectancy of the population may be lengthened and the rate o f population growth increas ed, these last two combining to expand the size of the wo rk forc e . In short, the re are economic consequenc e s of nutritional improvements and nutritional conse quenc es of economic advances .

However, the economic effects of any succes sful nutri­tional programme may not ne c e s s arily prove beneficial, sinc e the relationship c an also work in the opposite way . The most decisive factor influenc ing the effects is the relation between population and non-human re sourc e s ( land and capital) . When population is pre s s ing heavily upon available land, when money c apital is s carce , and when the marginal productivity of labour is low, additions to the work forc e or an inc rease in the wo rk capac ity of the labour unit may realise far less than proportional inc reas e s in output . If the output expansion does not match the rise in population, for example , a fall in living standards will re sult and hence the correction of the nutritional problem only aggravates the economic one .

It is when labour is scarce in relation to other resourc es and the marginal productivity of labour is high that successful treatment of nutritional problems would benefit the group economically through the additions to , and greater effic iency of, the work forc e . However, s erious and widespread nutritional problems are probably le s s c ommon under the se economic conditions .

ff 7

The implementation of a programme fo r nutritional im -proveme nt obvious ly nec essitate s a familiarity with the existing economy. If the success of the programme is expected to have substantial economic repe rcussions, it may be nec e s s ary to attempt an integration with plans for economic advancement in the region . But in addition, the type of economy plays an important part in dec iding how the programme will be ope rated . If it is a pure subsistenc e economy, the best method of inc reasing protein intake may be through some modific ation of traditional agricultural activities, while if it is a fully monetised economy, it will be more effective to market a protein supplement through normal retail channels .

In examining the nutritional problem of the Chimbu from an economic viewpoint, we might first review the relevant medic al points in Dr . Bailey ' s paper : -

1 . Protein malnutrition is important princ ipally among lactat ­ing mothe rs and among young children between 4 - 6 months and two years . Overall incidenc e in the 0 - 5 year age group was about 3 % in the Chimbu and in 1 9 56 , one e stimate showed that it was r e ­sponsible f o r about 2 7 % o f deaths i n children under 5 years .

2 . It does not seriously impair the performanc e of adults .

3 . The problem c an b e quite e asily overcome for children by the dige stion of small amount s of a protein supplement .

The main impact of a correctional programme would be on the mortality rate in the age group between t and 5 years, and the most intere sting effect of this would be the change in the size of population which would follow the fall in the death rate . No e xact estimate has been made but at a gues s it might raise the rate of population growth about 0 . 2 5% .

The Chimbu is one area in Papua- New Guinea with a high conc entration of population; in some sections there are 4 0 0 or more pe r s quare mile . In such conditions, a high rate of popula­tion growth can have s e rious cons e quenc e s . At the moment, th e rate of inc r ease is probably around 2 % so that, even with the inc rease which would result from a succ essful elimination of the prote in problem, the rate at 2 . 2 5% would still not be particularly high . Substantial economic repercussions would only aris e if

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the nutritional scheme was made part of a broader health pro ­gramme for the area, for example including malaria control .

The population- re sourc e balance is examined more closely in the following sections but it is apparent that the nutrition scheme would not alter it significantly. Thus in this case , the re levanc e of economic s to the nutritional problem is re stricted to the influenc e the type of economy might have on the way in which the programme is c arried out . In the two sections which follow, the pre s ent state of the economy and its future prospects will be reviewed . In the final s ection an appraisal of the peanut-feeding programme will be attempted in the light of the se economic observations .

The Chimbu economy today

By comparison with many other subsistenc e groups both within and beyond Papua- New Guinea, the Chimbu people w ere quite favourably plac ed for re sourc es in their traditional state . De spite a heavy conc entration of population, they were able to provide for their own needs without re aching the limits of available land or labour . Contact with Europe ans has induced, in rec ent years, a range of more sophistic ated wants which have stimulated additional money- making activities to serve them. Coffee growing has become by far the most important of these activities, though there are othe r minor one s, such as vegetable production and wage employment outs ide the area .

As part of a broad survey of the development of in -digenous cash c ropping in Papua- New Guine a, the writer and Mr . W. Straatmans recently completed field investigations of cash cropping in the Sina Sina Census Division of the Chimbu Sub- district . Data were collected on the economic activities of the are a both from s econdary sourc es and from interviews with a sample of 2 0 familie s, which together throw some light on the pre sent economy. The Sina Sina Divis ion containe d about 1 6 , OOO people in 1 9 6 1 , roughly 1 0% of the populat ion of the whole sub - district . With a total are a of 64 square miles , there were in that year an average of 24 6 people pe r s quare mile or in other words the re were 2 . 67 ac res pe r head of population, the figures varying somewhat from tribe to tribe . If an average family size of five is taken, the average total area available was 13 ac res per family in 1 9 6 1 . Measurements taken in the survey

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s ample gave an ave rage area of 1 0 ac res per family of this s ize . This latter figure takes no account of idle land not included in the agricultural cycle while the estimate of 1 3 acres inc lude s unu s able land so the actual average figure of land available for use is probably between the s e two limit s .

There were subst antial variations betw een familie s in the areas devoted to various uses , but on average, about 2 . 4 ac res were under cultivation for food, another 7 . 2 ac res were in fallow as part of the food cycle, while only 0 . 4 acres were planted to coffee, the main cash c rop . If about 9 . 6 acres are re quired for the subsistenc e c ycle and total land available i s betw een 1 0 and 1 3 ac re s per family, there are obviously severe limits to the area of land which can be spared for cash cropping and even greater limits to the area of land suitable for the s e ente rprise s .

Although there was considerable variation in s ize of coffee gardens between families in the survey sample (from zero to ne arly 5 ac res ) only 2 growers registe red more than 1 ac re and four of the 2 0 in the sample had no coffe e at all, indic ating cle arly how marginal cash c ropping is in the area . The se figure s are substantiated by grower registration figures for 1 9 6 2 , which show that there were about 24 00 growers in the C ensus Division and an estimated 2 74 , O O O tre e s , giving an ave rage of a few over 1 0 0 trees per grower, or les s than l/5 of an ac re on spacing standards recommende d by the Department of Agriculture . Moreove r, poor planting and maintenance methods and incomplete harve sting reduc e yields well below their potential .

Coffee growe rs are spre ad fairly evenly among the four tribes in the Sina Sina; the perc entages of adult male producers in each tribe varied between 49% and 6 0% . There is considerably more variat ion within the sub - groupings of the tribe s : in one tribe the perc entage of growers among the adult males of the different c lans ranged from as low as 2 7% to as high as 7 7 %, due princ ipally to the uneven distribution of suitable land between the clans .

Although the absence of records prevented any exact calculation of money income s in the Sina Sina survey, the total earned by the s ample of 2 0 informants from s ale s of coffee appears to have been about £2 3 0 in 1 9 6 2 / 6 3 , an average of £ 1 2 per family . Cash income from other sourc es , princ ipally the

7 0

sale of veg etables , brought this latter figure to £ 1 3 . Reported income from wage employment was negligible . 1 There was a considerable degree of variation around this average - the range was from zero to £ 5 7 - though the main conc entration was be ­tween zero and £ 1 0 ( 1 1 out of 2 0 were between these limit s ), and only two rece ived a cash income greater than £3 0 .

Consideration of money- making enterprises in isolation gives a distorted view of the economic activitie s in such groups as the Chimbu since so much of their work is bound up with subs istenc e needs . Without some unit of value applicable to both tradit ional and modern s ectors, it is difficult to gain a total picture . Fortunately a monetary valuation has recently been applied to all non- monetary activities in the indigenous sector for the Territory as a whole . 2 Total non- monetary produc e per c aput valued monetarily for 1 9 6 2 / 63 amounted to £5 1 . 1 0 . 0, and taking an aver age family size as five, this would give an ave rage non- monetary product of £2 58 pe r family . The figure is com­posed of the value of production for consumption 3 (food, clothing and housing), non- monetary community investment (village , public and council work), and non- monetary private investment ( in particular the value of new o r replacement tree c rops, and value of labour in Mis s ion gardens and works ) . The value of production for consumption per family is by far the largest c omponent of the total, amounting to £204 .

From a combination of e stimat es of cash income from the survey and of non- monetary income which acc rues to the family, an average figure of £2 1 6 is obtaine d for income per family from all source s in 1 9 62 / 63 . At pre s ent only 6% of family income is de rived from the monetary s ecto r .

There are three Europe an- owned trade store s i n the

1 The s ample was not des igne d however to afford a fair e s ­timate of income from this sourc e . 2 F isk, E . K. , ' Th e subs istenc e sector ' , Chapter III in National Income Estimate s for Papua- New Guinea, 1 9 6 0 - 6 3 . Government Printer, Canberra . February 1 9 64 .

3 The value of production actually consumed would be lower than this as the total figure include s wastage .

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Sina Sina and a numbe r of small native "bush " stores which draw their goods from the European stores . F igure s for nine months trading were obtained from the large st of these trade store s . These figure s do not provide any est imate of total expenditure for the are a but they do give a fairly reliable picture of the ex­penditure pattern and the relative importanc e of the various categories ( Figure 4 ) . The gro s s value of sale s (October 1 9 6 2 to June 1 9 6 3 ) was a . little over £ 1 0, O O O, and adjusted for the full year, the figure c ame to nearly £ 14 , O OO . Almost half of the total was composed of c lothing s ale s, altitude probably being the major influenc e here . Food was second in importanc e and smoking filled third place . The main categories of food sold were meat, fish, biscuits , dripping, soft drink, milk, sugar and s alt . Capital equipment such as gardening tools , s aws, axes, coffee pulpers and grinders made up about 5% of s ales .

Inventorie s taken of imported durable goods accumulated in the homes of tho s e in the survey showed that most of the goods had been purchas ed since 1 9 58 when coffee gardens first began to produc e in some quantity. At cost pric e, the total value of the se articles c ame to an average of £2 0 per family, varying from zero to £7 1 .

Sine e there is such a heavy conc entration of population in the Chimbu Sub - district there is quite a large sum of money earned within the area even though individual money incomes are still small . But it is obvious from the foregoing details on production activities and consumption patterns that the intrus ion of the modern economy has barely begun .

Economic prospects

Discussion of the economic prospects of the Chimbu can be most conveniently approached by dealing in turn with the princ ipal factors which influenc e progress , namely, economic attitude s, available re sourc es, enterprise opportunities and public policy .

Answers which Sina Sina farmer s gave t o que stions about future plans for c ash c ropping indicated a strong int e re st in economic advanc ement . Of the 20 farme rs interviewed, only two showed no enthusiasm for making an attempt to obtain more cash income, another e xhibited limited interest while the

72

Fo o o 2 4 lo

CLOT H I NG 46fo

Figure 4 . Pattern of s ales in a Chimbu trade stor e .

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remaining 1 7 expressed an active wish to expand plantings in order to e arn more .

Given that most have plans for future plantings, the next most important conside ration is the degree of expans ion which these plans will engender . Unfortunately no indic ation of this could be gaine d from the interviews but past expe rienc e gives some indic ation that progress might be slow . Between June 1 9 5 5 and July 1 9 6 3 , the numb er of coffee trees inc reased from 50, O O O to 2 74 , O O O, giving an ave rage annual inc reas e of 3 2 , O O O trees . This appears substantial at first glanc e, but as recommended planting is at more than 6 00 tre e s per ac re, the planting rate is only the equivalent of about 50 ac res per annum in a population of 1 6 , O O O .

Cons iderable attention has lately been given t o the question of whether the re is any scarc ity of resource s in the Chimbu . This must be answ ered both for the pre sent and the future . In a comprehens ive examination of the Chimbu, Brook­field and Brown4 have concluded that there is no general pressure of population upon re sourc e s at pre sent and there are no obvious signs of strain in produc ing food requirements and c ash c rops to the present level . However , the authors cast doubt upon the c apac ity of the area to expand agricultural production much further without reaching the limits of land availability . If thi s point is reached, a continued e xpans ion of cash c ropping would have the effect of reducing the level of production of food c rops .

Sina Sina data collected by Straatmans and myself have le d to much the s ame conclusions . So far as past plantings are concerned, only two of the farmers int e rview e d claime d that they were unable to plant coffe e through lack of suitable land . Another was force d to exchange some of his land to ob ­tain suitable planting grounds , but the remainder were not limited by land scarcity.

Answers to que stions on plans to expand the area of cash c rops indic ated a developing shortage . Thirty per c ent of

4 Brookfield, H . C. and Brown, P . , Struggle for Land . Oxford University Pre s s, 1 9 6 2 .

74

those interviewed c laimed that their plans were limited by a lack of suitable land, i . e . twice the numbe r that had been affected in the past . Admittedly land ownership is not evenly distributed between familie s , but i t is unlikely that a more even di stribution would materially alter the s ituation, s inc e there are no outstand­ingly large landholders among the groups . It is s afe to conclude that while land us ed for subs istenc e is held intact (both in culti­vation and in fallow) the limits of available land suitable for c ash c ropping will be quickly reached by most farmers and c ash incomes will still be at a low level .

If this s ituation were to continue unalte red, the economic prospects for the region would indeed be poo r . F amily incomes , inclusive of subs istence , would seldom exc e ed £3 00- 4 0 0 . How­ever, there ar e possible change s . One is an advanc e in the techniques of food c rop production . At the moment, the system of semi- shift ing cult ivation practised by the Chimbu produce s high per ac re yields o f the main c rop, sweet potatoe s . But after four years in production land must be spelled for 1 0 to 1 2 years, s o an ac re of land is in use for only one in 3 to 4 ye ars . If innovations were introduce d which could permit continuous cultivation of food c rops, more land would be released for the production of cash c rops . Alternatively, it may become poss ible to reduc e the length of the fallow by introducing, for instanc e, leguminous cash c rops, without thereby re duc ing the long term yields of food c rops . As yet very little experimental wo rk has been c arried out on the subs istenc e c ycle .

It has been assume d that cash crops would continue to be supplementary to subs istenc e activities and so we have tacitly acc epted a policy of continuing s elf- sufficiency for the individual . This may not prove to be economic ally wise in the future . As markets for food products grow throughout the Territory, it will become po s sible for inc reasing numbers of farmers to purchase their food nee ds . If they find that the returns from an alternative money- making enterprise more than cover the cost of purchasing food, they may break from the tradition of self ­sufficienc y, spec ialise in cash c rops, and thereby inc r ease their cash and net income s .

With the use of Fisk ' s figures for the money value of food produc ed in Papua- New Guine a and with population data for the Te rritory, a rough average figure of £ 1 8 0 per annum is obtained

7 5

from calculations of the value of food produc ed and consumed by a family . 5 Sina Sina data show that about 2 . 4 acres are under cultivation to produc e this food while another 7 . 2 acres are left in fallow . Thus 9 . 6 acres are nee ded for the annual production of this £ 1 8 0 worth of food . This gives an annual gro ss income of approximately £ 1 9 per ac re from subs istenc e pro duction. If the gross return from a cash c rop is substantially higher than this ( and labour requirements are roughly comparable ) a swing from self- sufficiency towards spec ialisation may be economi­cally justified .

For example, the potential yield of unfertilised coffee in the Sina Sina is around 1 t lbs per tree or 1, O O O lbs per ac re . At an average price of 1 / - per lb there would be a gross return of £50 per ac r e . 6 If food was available, it would obviously b e profitable to buy it and grow coffee inste ad since there would be a net gain of £3 1 pe r ac re . However in practice, there is not this s izeable differenc e . Actual h�rvested yields of coffee probably amount to only l/3 lb per tre e due to poor planting, maintenanc e and harve sting techni qu e s . 7 This reduce s per ac re income to about £2 0 . If these approximations are ne ar the mark the re would be little gain in switching land from food to coffee production, though better supervi s ion and t echnic al ass istance could raise yields close r to their potential and could justify spec ialisation. If such specialisation were to prove profitable, the release of the 1 0 ac res used for food production would raise the development horizon considerably .

It i s thus pos sible to argue that the developing land shortage may not prove c ritical fo r the long run development of the Chimbu, if one of the above pos sibilities eventuates . But one of the most c ritical problems is to single out enterprises

5 This e stimate is on the high side s inc e Fisk state s his pro ­duction- for- consumption figures overstate the quantity actually consumed (cf . p . . 7 1 footnote 2 ) .

6 If a high quality bean could b e consistently produc ed, the average price rece ive d could be as high as 1 / 6 d per lb . and acre returns could be as high as £7 5 .

7 Rough e stimates supplied by Mr . G . Dick, Department of Agriculture , Papua - New Guine a .

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which will afford a satisfactory and dependable rate of return for these farmers . Coffee has been the main hope since the 50 ' s but the world market has reached such a state o f oversupply that produce rs have b een forc ed to accept an agreement which incor­porates a system of export quotas in orde r to bring some order to the chaotic state of the market . Although Papua- New Guinea has received favourable short - term tre atment w ithin the Agreement, there appears to be little chance for future expansion of coffee exports which would enable the industry to play an impo rtant role in the long term development of the Territory. This is a serious setback for the Territory as a whole but particularly for the Chimbu . The effect of restrictions will be to reduc e the momen­tum of progres s in the area .

There i s considerable variation in the phys ical environ­ment within the Chimbu, so that all parts will by no means have the s ame potential for development . Economic opportunity has been scarc e at high altitude s, e specially above the coffee line at 6 , 500 feet; much of this country is too steep and rugged for any ente rprise . On more cultivable slope s at high altitude s there are now hopes held for the cultivation of pyrethrum. If yields of 8 0 0 lbs could be obtained, it might be pos sible for growers to gross as much as £6 0 per ac re . As yet, however, the industry i s barely past the e xperimental stage in the field, and the extent of the market has not been determined .

Peanuts have been grown for some years, partly for s ale and partly for consumption. A good c rop yielding 1 2 cwt pe r ac re would give a gross return of about £30 at a pric e of 6 d per lb, o r up to £60 per ac re if double - cropped . Future expans ion of this product in the Chimbu may re quire a more as sured market, particularly in Australia, together with more stable pric e s . Fluctuations have r educe d prices to very low levels at times in the past and these have discouraged many growers . Tobacco has also been grown on a small scale in the villages and quantitie s have be en bought at low price s for the production of twist tobac c o . Pro spects would be brighter for this crop if there were a market for better grade s , e . g. if Te rritory tobacco were incorporated in the production of c igarette s . Small quantities of vegetable s have b e en sold locally and in Goroka and there have been hopes that Europe an vegetables could justify development, but di stanc e s to markets of any size and the diffi ­cultie s of acc e s s to the producing areas have made transport

7 7

costs high enough to preclude large sc ale expans ion in truck c rops .

With such a limite d land area available to each farme r, it would se em most logic al to endeavour to concentrate on crops which can give a high return per ac re with intensive cultivation. Unfortunately, now that rest rictions are to be placed on coffee expansion with the pos sible but unte sted possibility of pyrethrum there s e em to be no such products on the horizon. For want of one, the best prospects may lie with the development of animal industries . A beef cattle industry se ems to be the most feasible poss ibility; it could probably be blended with the production of food c rops through the us e of fallow land for grazing . Pasture swards may have a low c arrying capac ity at pre s ent but it may be pos sible to raise this later with improved spec ies . Individual native- owned herds are now being encouraged, eithe r as bre e d­ing or fattening projects . Government livestock Stations sell the cattle to the natives and they supply fencing and othe r facilitie s , the costs of which are later recouped from proceeds of project s ale s . The growth in number of projects will be largely gove rned by the rate of turn- off pos sible from the Government Stations .

The re would also seem to be good long t erm po s sibilit ies for the foundation of a dairy industry around Goroka where milk conc entrate s could be manufacture d, and later pos sibly fre sh milk could be produce d . If this should develop s atisfacto rily then improved transport fac ilitie s between Goroka and the Chimbu might open up part of this latter area as a sourc e of dairy products . There will be substantial problems of training in animal husbandry and sanitation to contend with in the early ye ars, but with ade quate advic e and supervision from the Ad­ministration, the se problems should not prove unsurmountable . Apart from cattle, potent ialitie s may also lie in the development of the poultry and pig industrie s, part icularly the latter since it is alre ady integrat e d with subsistenc e activities .

There are then some enterprises which show degre es of promise but all individuals within the Chimbu do not have the same opportunities to take advantage of the m . Some limitations of opportunity affect groups as a whole, e . g . thos e who live in the more remote parts of the Sub- district are e specially re ­stricted by difficulty of acce ss , by altitude and by a low proper-

78

tion of useful land available . Other limitations affect only c ertain memb e rs of a group . The unequal di stribution of re ­sourc es between members of a clan is the most common example . Both are problems developing out of a new des ire for advanc ement since in precontact t ime s each member generally had suffic ient re sourc es to meet his limited needs . For individuals who are striving towards new living standards the se differenc e s in re­sourc e wealth take on a new s ignificance . Spec ial me asures, such as resettlement, may have to be introduc ed for those who are now found to be particularly badly plac e d for development .

There are programme s of resettlement being considered for the Chimbu whereby numbers would be moved to other parts of Papua- New Guinea with potential for development, but which are unde r- populated at pre sent . Parts of the North Coast of New Britain would be able to absorb considerable numbers transferred in this way. Such an idea is encouraged by the brighter market outlook for agricultural export c rops, such as cocoa and copra, produced at lower altitude s . Against this, there would be heavy expense involved in transporting settlers to the area and in pro ­viding minimum fac ilit ie s in such an undeveloped loc ation . How ­ever, if it were pos sible to limit total cost s per settler to a reasonable figure large sc ale re settlement programm e could measurably relieve the short run Chimbu re sourc e problem. For example , if a settler and his family of four could be e stablished for a cost in the vic inity of £2 000, then £2 million per year could shift 4, O O O people to the new area and a 1 0 - year programm e could re duc e the population of the Chimbu by nearly one - quarter . This may be an optimistic set of cost figures but they do suggest that relief by re settlement is not impractical .

It is debatable whether expensive programme s of re ­settle ment represent the b est way of encouraging long term agricultural expansion, or whethe r transfe r to isolated areas offers the best result from resettlement, given the limited amounts of public c apital available for investment . But it might well be argued that the Chimbu case deserves spec ial treatment on the grounds that there are numbers who suffer under the hardship of having virtually no economic prospects . If popula­tion pre ssure inc reases furthe r through a rise in the rate of population growth, there may be a risk of dec lining living standards which would intens ify the problem .

7 9

There is an urgent ne ed to discover a c ash- e arning pro ­duct which can be expanded now that coffee i s to be re stricted . Without one, the outlook for fast economic development in the near future is not bright . There will be some increase in out-put of coffee as more tre e s come into bearing and productivity is raised, and further plantings will be made on a small scale but money income will not be rapidly augmented from any other sourc e and new enterprises will take some years to play a significant role .

The rate of progre ss will be strongly influenc e d by the intensity of direct persuasion and encouragement, technic al assistance and supe rvision provided by Department of Agricul-ture officers . The lack of financ e and personnel has seve rely limited extension work in the past - many farmers s e e an Exten­sion Officer only once a year - and this slowed the rate of progres s . Yet it was evident in the Sina Sina that past coffee plant ings w e re still principally governed by the amount of e xtens ion work carried out by Agricultural and Native Affairs Offic ers . A combination of intensified t echnical assistance and improvements in the road network could encourage a faste r rate of economic progre s s in the future .

Conclusions

There are thre e basic methods of organiz ing a protein fe eding scheme . A supplement can be distributed fre e of charge by some c entral agenc y, it c an be produc ed by the consume rs themselve s (a grow - it - yours elf programme ), or it c an be sold through normal trade channels . In an agricultural economy of a purely subsistenc e character, there are of cours e no commercial trade channels to use and the most practical method is to persuade farmers to produce for their own nee ds . At the other ext reme , in fully monetised economies, consumers would usually be edu ­cated t o purchase the appropriate supplement . The economy of the Chimbu contains both subsistence and monetary e le ments but it is still primarily subsistence in characte r . There are numbers who e arn no money at all and the great majority of tho s e who do, earn very small sums .

The fact that the Chimbu is a mixed economy make s it more difficult to devise an effective nutritional programme . On one hand a scheme for distributing a protein supplement through trade channels would neglect tho se who have e ither insufficient

8 0

mone y to b e able to purchas e it . On the other hand, a scheme which attempts to influence the community to grow their own ne eds fails to take account of the new economic trends . As a matte r of princ iple, if a cheap supplement c an be made available through the market, it may be more profitable for farmers to buy it and to earn more than it s cost by devoting those resourc es to a cash ent e rprise , unle ss o f course the production of the supplement is in fact the most profitable use of the resourc es .

In view of the fact that it must be alloc ate d regularly throughout a rather rugged and mountainous region to small and widely scattered groups , a system of free distribution would appear impractical and expensive in t erms of money and man­power . The best approach in the Chimbu may well be to combine the other two schemes : promote a grow - it - yourself scheme among the more economically backward but also develop a cheap and palatable product which could be advertised and made available through the t rade stores for the more economi ­cally advance d . Incidentally, the consideration o f a marketed product might lead to the choice of a product other than the peanut as the base for the supplement, e . g. skim milk powder, fish paste or some other plant protein . Given e qual palata­bility, the choice would be made on the relative cheapness of the alternatives . The relative emphasis place d on the growing and buying parts of the programme would vary with the evolving economic status of the people in the region . So long as money incomes w e re low or absent the grow- it - yourself programme may have to be emphasised, while economic progres s would encourage the gradual substitut ion of marketed products for the home - grown product .

8 1

Discus s ion ( following Dr . Shand ' s paper )

Unknown : Would Dr . Shand tell u s about the language problems in the interviews in his study ? From my expe rienc e I feel he sitant about the validity of the replies to questions .

Shand : Language is a difficulty and I am not confident that we have totally overcome the problem . The method used by Mr . Straatmans, who is wo rking with me, depends on a cons ide rable personal rapport . The value of the interviews is greatly enhanced because he is a very skilled interviewer . The study design w as one which could be applied in a more sophisti-cated community, but with translation of que stions by Mr . Straatmans into the appropriate form for the se villages I am confident that the replies were quite reliable .

Crocomb e : Professor Marwick yesterday gave u s an example of the dangers of the question and answe r technique . He showed how when he checke d ve rbal answe rs with actual behaviour he got very c lose to the oppos ite result . I do not sugge st that in Dr . Shand ' s survey this would nec e s sarily be so, but all of us working in New Guinea must base our conclusions on measurements and not on statement s .

Shand : I would like to agre e, but in situations whe re measurements cannot be taken, one c an still utilize statements of intentions . Where measurements were po ssible and statist ic s available, they were us ed . Que stioning was use d as a c ro s s ­check o n statistic s collected and t o ascertain future plans and the factors which influenc e them. The comparison of the replies with actual plans carrie d out may well conflict in some cases but I know of no other way of collecting data ex ant e . I would be mo st careful to avoid any assumption that intended plans are nec e s s arily those carried out .

Unknown: Is there a pos sibility of a fishing industry to bring in more protein foods ?

Shand : The re are plans for developing a fishing industry in the coastal are as of New Guinea, but not on the inland rive r systems so far as I am aware .

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Chairman: There are expe rimental fish ponds at Mt . Hagen, but what the potentialiti es for these are, I do not know .

Shand : If the coastal fishing industry prospe rs, it is possible that fish paste or powder could become a marketable product within New Guine a .

Mr . Dick : Experiment s have been conducted in the highlands but relative to the size of the population, the extent of the likely fish protein would not be ve ry significant .

Unknown: Many of the technic al staff in New Guine a are inexperienc ed in local conditions . They are trained in more technologically developed countries .

Shand : It take s time for a new officer to become accustomed to the area in which he is working . If staff are move d too frequently some of the value of expe rienc e in local conditions may be lost .

Unknown : If milk powder was flavoure d to taste like roast pork, for example, would it be more likely to win favour in New Guinea ?

Bailey: Several alternative le gumes have been tried in various parts of the Te rritory including the green gram, and chick pea ( cajanus c ajan ) . Soya beans have succe ssfully been introduc ed into some areas, for example the Baiyer River Area of the We stern Highlands, where the people considered Soya beans tasted like peanuts and called Soya powder made from Soya beans, "peanut powder " . With regard to milk the out ­standing problem is that it i s ( and probably always will have to be ) imported .

Unknown : What were the earnings in the best group in Dr . Shand ' s s ample, and how did he account for the best conditions ?

Shand: The leading grower in the s ample, who was e arning about £50 per year, has a considerable amount of land available, and also had the gre atest amount of previous contact with Europeans . He worked in plantations for a numb e r of years; he w as something of a commercial leade r . He corn-

83

bined entrepreneurial talents with available re sourc es .

Unknown: Would Dr . Shand give us his views on the possibility of e stablishing loc al industries in the Chimbu area . Some provis ion must be made for the future surplus population who can 't live on the land . In the Chimbu area there are con­siderable re sources o f limestone and i f gypsum could be im­ported and use made of the fast flowing Chimbu river for hydro­electric power without any elaborate dam, it should be pos s ible to manufacture c ement in the are a . Onc e you have cement it would be poss ible to put a better surface on the roads and thus improve communications . Onc e you have an industrial enter ­price with people employed i n it and earning money, you can turn the economy into something more than a cash economy and attract further industry .

Shand : It i s hard to give a judgement on this sort of project without having available information about the market, transportation costs , etc . , but it does s e em a likely po ssibility on the surface .

Brookfield: The re has rec ently been a study on the lime resourc e s of the Territory by the Building R e s e arch Unit of the C . S. I. R . 0 . Lime stone s of the Chimbu area were included . There is a pos sibility of using this lime in s mall kilns . The general conclus ion se ems to have been that bec ause of difficulties in transport you can 't do anything about the c ement industry, but that there are many purposes for which you can us e lime and there s e em to be good prospects for this .

Chairman : It is impos sible for any spe ake r here to give a precise answer to any particular propo sal, but there is no doubt whateve r that in the long run the development of this area, particularly with the change ove r to cash c ropping, will lead to the nec e ssity to develop other employment opportunitie s . Most people would agr e e first things must come first, and attention to the kind of problems being discussed this morning come first . The use of loc al t imber, the harness ing of power, the se things must come . The question is when .

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Introduction

Community developme nt and the Chimbu

W. E . Tomasetti

( Department of Native Affairs , Territory of Papua and New Guine a )

The Chimbu Divis ion is one of those areas of New Guinea s aid to be either overpopulated or nearing overpopulation. For this paper I regard overpopulation as existing when the density of people on their land is such that they cannot maintain their standards without degrading their land re source s . Those parts of the Chimbu where this problem is thought to be most pre s sing are the c ensus divis ions named Mitnande, Niglkande, Yonggamugl, Sinas ina, Waiye, Dom, Wikauma and Marigl .

Despite a number of surveys I think it i s true to say that overpopulation as defined above is not yet proven: however densities are high ( in some place s over 500 per s quare mile ) and the present state of knowledge certainly re quire s the Adminis­tration ' s attention. The population of the above census divis ions s e ems to be increasing at about 1 . 5 to 2 pe r c ent each year . If this trend continues for even ten years the land will b e supporting

. many more people - if they all stay at home . Among the Tolai of New Britain and the Mekeo of the Central District inc re ase s are about 3 or 4 per c ent per annum .

Development

The Administration is committed to improving the standard of living of the Chimbu as a general aim, and c an point to a long li st of achievements . Overpopulation re quire s a further effort howeve r as the normal methods and tempo of development will not nec essarily me et the spec ial needs of overpopulated areas .

The body of ideas called community development has been used with some success in some situations in the task of ove rall development and thus it could be regarde d as being of potential use in the Chimbu situation . Some important aspects of the Adminis ­tration ' s work to date has, in part, embodie d these ide as .

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What doe s the term mean ? It c an be regarded as propos ­ing an end (or aim) sometimes alte rnatively expre ssed as the development of communities of people, or village s, in the ir politi­cal, economic , soc ial, and cultural aspects . This doe s not take us ve ry far as most governments conc erned with low - income people would claim to be doing e xactly this . Another w ay of re­garding community development as an end or aim is the attempt to produce in the people a wish and a capac ity to play a major part in the identific ation and solution of their own problems . At its wo rst this view postulates the almost magic al emergenc e of brothe rly love among men and women focused on community c entres established on the initiative of the c entral gove rnment . Failures along these lines are more common than succ e sses . At its best this view of community development is promising, as it come s to grips with a vital problem of administration - how to fit existing community ambitions into development programme s and how to stimulate static or dormant communitie s : thus main­taining a good tempo of healthy improvement .

If one adopts this view of community development ( and it is worth adopting) one must then face the question of how to achieve this end . This introduc es the second meaning of the term 'community development ' which is that it desc ribes a means or a s et of administrative technique s or methods and is thus used as an adj ective phrase prec eding e ither ' methods ' or 'programme ' . The term may thus be used as either a noun or an adjective - me aning either an end or a method . Unles s this dual us age is kept in mind a good deal of confusion can result .

In this pape r I am as suming that the end sought o r the aim of the Administration is community development, and will be conc erned to discus s means or methods .

What are community development methods and what are the community development programmes to which they lead ? The methods should involve people to the maximum in the identific ation and solution of their specific problems . This is the old principle of self-help, but more than the provision of endle ss quantities of unskilled labour, it also means encourag­ing people to make their own dec is ions both in the identification of ends (that is , which projects they want ) and in the implemen­tation and operation of the se projects .

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The modific ation of Chimbu life away from that of tradition towards attitudes, values and practic es in harmony with the best of the twentieth c entury, both ethically and materially, is a proc ess of social change that started up to thirty years ago . The change s involved are very profound one s in the light of the point of departure and the presumed target and they involve big pe rsonal and institutional adjustments . Influencing this proc ess make s big demands on the Administration if i t is to ensure its direction and tempo produce the most constructive re sults . The Administration claims prime re spons ibility for this task . What we see as a process , however, doe s not nec essarily appear in that form to a Chimbu . Perhaps he thinks of a series of s ituations in which he has mo re or les s choice in the adoption of a new attitude, or technique, or institution that may be proffered consciously by the Administration or may eme rge as a possibility in a situation. The relat ionship between this choice and former and subse quent ones is not ne cess arily perc eived or, i f i t is , it may well be in te rms diffe rent from ours .

Our development administration can be matched to this view of the soc ial proc esses involved if we think of development in any one area as b eing embodied in an area development pro ­gramme and this programme consisting o f a serie s o f projects each in­volving a· community. Each of these project1s involves for the community on which it is based the adoption of an idea or an institution or both . The se projects are usually village aid posts , village primary schools, community technical schools , branch roads, co - operative soc ieties , cash agriculture , village clubs, village water supply, literacy classes , loc al government counc ils , cottage industry, stocking rais ing resettlement schemes, etc .

If it is to maximis e the tempo of development among the people of an area the Administration must do thre e things relat ing to the people of that area . It must have reported to the authority charge d with development in that are a all community (or individual) ambitions as soon as they are manifest : where ambitions are not fully rat ional or not properly c rystallised out of a s imple vague des ire for advanc ement it has to help the individuals or groups concerned to find a rational basis for their ambition or to shape it into suitable form: and it must find w ays of stimulating static (or dormant ) communities . It is not nec e s s ary to get too deeply involved in the detail of function, organization and training of staff to ensure the above

8 7

activities are performe d: present field staff in the Chimbu with some retraining and reorganiz ation could do this . The skills embrac ed in the term 'human relations ' have a large part to play in the se proc e s s e s . This day to day contact with communitie s, properly organized, should do much to produce projects based on felt needs which could then be arrange d into area development programmes . However it must remain in mind that maximising people 's participation in their own development start s with letting each community choose to adopt or reject any project and where any community dec ides to stay out s ide, for the time being, formalised pressures should not be us ed to bring it in . Stimu­lation and indirect ' soc ial ' pressures can play a big part in this respect .

It may be argued that, in the Chimbu, if the tempo of development is governed by this princ iple of willing partic ipation, the s ituation would immediately stagnate . Conve rsely it is held that if the Administration knew of all ambit ions among communi­tie s in the Chimbu that could take the form of community development projects , it would be overwhelmed and would be hard put to find the complementary re sourc es ( i . e . teachers for schools , orderlies and supplies for aid-posts , etc . ) . In practice a balance could probably be found particularly where the principle of self-he lp i s used; and New Guinea peoples have proved they are prepared to help themselves when their interest is aroused .

It is also true that some ambitions inevitably se ek a non­rational expression and become cults . There is no quick and neat answe r to these situations : each succes sful project in an area supports the rational elements . Howeve r, whilst the Chimbu have shown small intere st in cult s, they have displayed a readiness to work for their own improvement along rational lines .

Maintaining s atisfacto ry contact with all communities is not the only aspect of development administration . It is nec e s s ary to arrange machinery that provides that all agenc ies of development in an area, that is government departments and voluntary agencie s such as miss ions, are so co- ordinated that their work is not overlapping o r competing and thus wasting scarc e resourc e s . The development of a community is one pro ­c e s s with s everal aspects and not a variety o f proc esses and

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unles s co -ordination is good enough to make it appear as one ' administration ' programme rather than a s eries of departmental programme s, re sourc e s are wasted and momentum lost .

The re i s no simple answ er to this hoary old problem. Government departments traditionally value their autonomy and denominational miss ions are fre quently in rivalry . It is c lear that the real suffere rs from any failure here are the people trying to develop thems elves who do not rec eive the help they should.

Much has been written about this problem. I believe the answer lies initially in an area development authority composed of on-the- spot repre sentative s of the departments involved in development . This authority would have the right to consider all projects sponsored by any department prior to their implemen­tation by that department . Assuming such an authority functioned smoothly under a skilled chairman (who would be the senior generali st offic er in the area ) it could not fail to raise the level of co-ordination and would inevitably be drawn into forward planning . Although it s membership would be primarily public s e rvants , the voluntary agencies working in the are a should have the ir repre s entative s drawn into its work . Such a body could operate in the Chimbu . At the next level down local government councils eve ry day prove they can be effective in­struments for the co - ordination of development in their areas . At the appropriate t ime, politically, the area development authority could evolve towards a more repres entative nature . Area co-ordination and planning can probably be fully effective only in a context of territory co- ordination and planning . The current interest in the United Kingdom in regional development bodies is worthy of note in this context .

If this idealised pattern o f administrat ion is achieved each of the c ensus divisions ( sections ) of the Chimbu would evolve it s community development programme based on the felt nee ds of e ach community . In this context 'community ' is synonymous with ' group ' in a sociological s ens e rather than with 'village ' : which in any case in the Chimbu is fre quently an administrative devic e . Any community ' s view of it s own ne eds is not nec e s s arily the s ame as the more detached apprais al made by out s iders, be they a team of profe ss ional workers or officers of the c entral administration . Even where

89

there is some common ground in these two ass e s sments the s e quence or priority of nee ds may not agree . In the Chimbu today many would think the overpopulation and child malnu -trition were the priority problems and inde ed they may well be . However unles s the people involved - that is the parent s of the sick children and those with insufficient land - see that these are problems demanding e arly rectificat ion we cannot e xpe ct wholehearted co- ope rat ion if we pursue solutions to them. The s ame people may, alte rnatively, work very hard on a proj ect that they consider important . If we believe a suffic iently large social evil exists and it s solution requires a posit ive con­tribution by the people we c an endeavour to ensure their partic i ­pation by provision of a legislative sanction at e ither local or c entral level . Alte rnatively, if we believe that this will be cumbersome and will not really do anything about the root of the problem which is ignorance and conservativene ss, we will have to direct our efforts towards encouraging the people concerned to see the problem in rational terms . This may slow up the proc e s s but if the change s we s e ek do not occur the proj ect in fact will have been foisted onto people and, being without roots in them, will b e only as succ essful as external pres s ures make it . The us e of native leadership wtll not nec essarily help in this s ituation. If it remains unconvinc e d about the value o f what w e attempt it will b e o n the side of avoidance . If it tries to help us (having be en convinced ) it runs the risk of s eparat ing itself from it s public support .

The us e of s anctions may change people 's behaviour but will not change their beliefs . On this s imple truism re sts the proposition that a community must mak e its own rate of change if the process is to remain a he althy one .

Spec ial measures

The foregoing has been mainly conc e rned with general considerations of development in the Chimbu, but briefly refe rred to the pos s ibilitie s of spec ial measures required by infant malnutrition and overpopulation . Two points s eem relevant to the general background of special measure s . The Chimbu is not the only part of New Guine a with thes e problems . And any measure s undertaken will not be effective if population continues to increas e more quickly than production : nor will the transfer of people provide an answer unles s the rate of

9 0

inc rease at the source falls . This involves the matter of family planning which may not enjoy unive rsal support or unde rstanding in the Chimbu .

However, as suming community development methods lead to a ste ady improvement in living conditions in the Chimbu, they could also endeavour to inte rest people in a special range of pro ­j ects directed towards relieving pres s ure of people on land . These are, better land utilisation, and resettlement, e ither local or distant, or urban or rural .

Better land utilization could take two main forms; either the introduction of new crops (or new varieties of existing one s ) or more effective methods o f cultivation. Government efforts could alternat ively be directed towards a rapid conve rsion of exist ing native agriculture from a subsistenc e to a market basis . This as sumes that c rops c ould be found for which a market is available and that would provide a more valuable return than that from current subsistenc e act ivities . "'\

None of these pos s ibilities seem particularly feasible . Those who know Chimbu subs istenc e agriculture best underline its technic al effic iency and its harmonious integration with other aspects of Chimbu life . There may be s cope for the introduction of more economic varieties of existing c rops : how ­ever it would be rash to as sume that the economic s of such an introduction would automatically commend it to the people conc erned . Non- economic factors may weigh against their adoption .

Any attempt to convert Chimbu agriculture to exclusive market production is even more fantastic . The Chimbu culture is tightly built around the pre sent system of agriculture , practis ed for many generations . Agricultural revolutions probably have occurred . It se ems likely that the Chimbu adopt e d sw e et - potato as their main c rop a lengthy pe riod after their neolithic revolution . However, although the current beginnings of the diversion of re sourc es from subsistence to market agriculture may be the commenc ement of a revolution of a similar o rder_, there seem to be few prospects of complet ­ing this revolution in a short period .

Loc al rural resettlement, i . e . movement on to land

9 1

close enough to one ' s village to enable connections to b e main­tained therewith, has b een reported in the Chimbu . It is doubtful, however, i f i t is or could be of a volume that would contribute to a solution of the problem. Those thus re settling themselves normally move to an area in which they have an exist ing relationship with the land owners and their occupation is on the basis of traditional land tenure .

In addition to this spontaneous resettlement it is poss ible that planned resettlement on areas clo s e to the Chimbu may be undertaken . Limited areas with some pos s ibiliti es await investigation although the investigation of the Bomai has b een disappointing . Withal, some spontaneous migration to it has been taking place from the Marigl and Wikauma are as .

The Chimbu valley is ringed by mountains even less hospitable to homo s apiens than is the valley itself, and the scope for this type of resettlement seems limited .

Distant rural resettlement differs from the former in that the settlers are so remote from their home village s that day- to- day ties are severed and the s ettler has to build his new life in isolation from his relat ive s and home support - even if he takes his wife and children with him. A few Chimbu are s quatting here and there throughout the Territory but their initiative c annot be expected to lead to a planne d solution of the problem - rather it could become a default outlet .

For several years the Administration has been ac quiring by normal proc e s se s tract s of land surplus to the owner ' s r e ­quirements and sub - dividing them for small farm development . The farms are intended for indigenous s ettlers and the aim is a prosperous peasantry. R ec ent variations, I think, provide for more ambitious and able individuals to commence a conversion to ' e state s ' employing paid labour - in a small way of course : but inte resting re sults may appe ar . A very s mall number of Highlanders , on their own initiative, have b een granted leases in the se scheme s .

It s e ems likely that if large sc ale re settlement of Chimbu people is to be sponsored, it would have to be on this planned basis leading to individual tenure . As there appears to be insufficient land c lo s e to the Chimbu, it would eventually

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re sult in the emergenc e of homogeneous Chimbu communities in various parts of New Guinea . Rapid political development and fe ars of regionalism might mitigate against thi s . Such re­settlement would make huge demands on the c apital resource s of the Administration and the expenditure may not produce any quick return.

Loc al urban re settlement already exists in that High­landers form part of the skilled and semi- skilled urban aggre ­gations . What skills they have obtained have been largely the results of their own initiative although technical schools are now turning out some youths with skills, and sympathetic em -ployers have been very helpful .

It is difficult to as s e s s the expansion of opportunities in this cat egory. Certainly as the dense highland populations become more productive so will the demand for tertiary industry (mainly se rvic e s ) grow and this will me an the growth of towns and more skilled employment . However there will be general competition for the s e jobs .

Distant urban resettlement is the eventual lot of many Highlanders who leave home originally to work in rural industries . As the need for health and other special pre ­cautions conc e rning the employment of Highlanders in the low ­lands diminishes , it s e ems likely that more Chimbu than at pre sent will yield to the attraction of city lights and make for the towns .

The scope for urban employment has certainly in­c r eased since 1 94 5, and will probably continue to inc rease although, of course, this trend i s related to the volume of investment in towns . New Guinea is entering what may be a period of politic al unce rtainty and this may effect the rate of investment . However, if it does , the effect should be only temporary. If current s igns are to be trusted the road towards self- dete rmination in New Guine a promises to be a smooth one with a minimum of disloc ation - if any.

An inc r ease in confidenc e and this inve stment can pe rhaps be expected . The survey of the Territory, the field work for which was rec ently completed by a World Bank team, at the invitation of the Australian gove rnment, may help clarify

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the problem. More inve stment will me an more jobs and doubt ­le s s many Chimbu will move into some of them .

Conclusion

The foregoing summarises the general and special approache s to community development in the Chimbu . The em­ployment of community development methods and the build- up of community development programmes could help in raising the tempo and effectivenes s of improvement of the Chimbu . As the proc e s s being more and more part of social change it could lead to a better understanding of and a desire to solve the problem of overpopulation - and then help in it s solution .

It will not guarantee that the prio rity in which problems are tackled is the one we think mo st appropriate . This is un -avoidable if our aim is to encourage and assist people to improve themselves .

94

Introducing peanut butter into Chimbu infant diet

June Anne Ro ss

( Formerly Department of Public Health, Territory of Papua and New Guinea )

From August 1 9 6 2 t o June 1 9 6 3 a pilot project w a s con­ducted in the Waiye Counc il Area with the principal objective of extending the peanut butter infant feeding project from the first hospital- centere d stage , and the second clinic - orientated stage in which the Public Health Department supplied the grinde rs while the mothers brought their own peanuts to the Infant Welfare Clinics, to the third and final stage in which the scheme becomes a community responsib ility with the people buying their own grinders through their loc al government council, growing and preparing the ir own peanuts , and bringing them to a central point for grinding .

More spec ifically, the objectives we re :

( 1 ) To promote the use of peanut butter as a protein supplement in the diet of all infants aged six we eks and ove r .

( 2 ) To study customs of infant care and diet and related beliefs and attitude s including both tho s e that are traditional and those adopted from Mis sion and Adminis ­tration contact .

( 3 ) To determine the acc eptability of peanut butte r feeding and to learn whether it comes into irreconc ilable con­flict with any traditional beliefs and customs .

(4 ) To study the existing situation as regards the cultivation, distribution and consumption of peanuts .

( 5 ) To encourage the growing of peanuts for home consump­tion rather than as a cash c rop, and the cultivation of Virginia Bunch peanuts to the eventual exclusion of the more common Spanish Red and mixed varieties .

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( 6 ) To dete rmine the most effective methods o f diss eminating information among the Chimbu, and the means by which a change in food patterns c an be st be effected .

( 7 ) To pre sent information o n problems which could po ssibly arise in the promulgation of peanut butter feeding in comparable culture areas of Papua-New Guinea .

A s has been pointed out, the Chimbu i s deficient i n prote in and in calories . For this reason nutrition re search is most important in the Eastern Highlands , and espec ially in Chimbu Sub­district, where extension work on the peanut project was incepted . The Waiye Native Local Government Council area w as selected for the main phase of the pilot proj ect . Initially effort was con­c entrated in the Waiye are a, including six aid-posts, a grinding clinic at Mintima, and the hospital at Mingende Catholic Miss ion . Later, work was extended into the Koronigl Counc il area, and into the Kup, an isolated plateau south of the Waghi River between Minj and Kondiu .

With the advent of attempting to incept an attitude change of the food patte rns of a people, it must be re alized that the total culture of a society is integrated in such a w ay that what may appe ar to be only a small change in one aspect of culture will require adjustments in many related culture trait s . A change in food pattern for instanc e, may involve the cultivation of a new c rop, a change in garden methods, a strange mode of food preparation, and an adjustment in meals to accommodate the new food .

In some respects, the introduction of peanut butter in Chimbu doe s not re quire many major adjustment s . The proc e s s has been made easier by past experienc e with peanuts - their cultivation at least is not a new and strange procedure . The proc e s s of culture change pass e s through thre e stage s : changes o f behaviour ( superfic ial) , change of attitude, and change of behaviour ( customary) . These are not so much stages as de ­grees of depth to which the change has become impre ssed upon the existing culture pattern. The ultimate object of extension wo rk is of course the final stage - a change in customary behaviour . It may, and indeed usually doe s, take many years to achieve . The imposition of informatiop., and instruction in an authoritarian manner, simply result in the first phase ; as soon

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as the authority is removed, the people return to their forme r pattern o f behaviour . To achieve the second phase, a change of attitude, may take a long tim e; the people should be made aware of the problem and to realize that the solution suggested is de sirable and prefe rable to the present s ituation . The third phase c an only be brought about aft er this change of attitude, because the motivation for accepted and habitual behaviour must originate or be induced within the group . This may take many years to achieve bec ause people , e specially those in the higher age groups, are conservative, and the new conc ept may have to do battle in the minds of the people with a conc ept and custom firmly establi shed by gene rat ions of tradit ions .

Avenues for induced change

There are s everal alternative means by which the ex-tension phase of the pe anut project in Chimbu may be conducted . Most of the se methods we re attempted eithe r in the pilot proj ect or previously . In considering the channels for dissemination of ideas it is well for one to be mindful of tho s e aspects of accultur­ation afforded by Miss ion and Gove rnment which have been rejected, accepted, o r to some extent emulated, and why. The best orientated agencies for the dissemination of such ideas at this t ime are Infant Welfare Workers, Hospitals, Aid Posts, Councillors, Miss ions, recognized leaders and spoke smen, informal discus sions, schools and teachers, agricultural workers, and conc entrated Government project s .

In the e arly stage s of the pe anut project the Infant Welfare Clinics had met with little succe s s in the Chimbu are a . Drum-tops and grinders were t aken out on Clinic s and the mothers encourage d to bring their own peanuts for cooking and grinding . Some women w e re is sued regularly with a free supply of peanut butter . The Infant Welfare Servic e made little impact with this programme at the first because ( a ) male authority is all important in Chimbu society, and, although the clinic s are often held at Aid Posts , with an Aid Post Orderly as sisting, he doe s not lend sufficient male support to the programme; ( b ) the Clinic s come into contact wi th only the women of the community, whereas it is the men who first must be e ducated and converted to a new idea which when accepted they will pas s on to their womenfolk; ( c ) the Clinic s , being transitory, have insuffic ient t ime to help the people in alleviating the lack of loc ally grown peanuts ; ( d ) only a small perc entage of

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mothers attend a clinic, so that its range of influenc e is limited; { e) the Clinic s are inevitably associated with the hospital, and quite divorc ed from the normal routine of the people .

Hospitals can be most effective in providing tangible proof of the value of peanut foods in improving the health and physical appearance of infants . But the range of the hospitals ' influenc e is naturally re stricted to a relatively small area . Perhaps this i s an advantage , for it is most important that the peanuts - for-babies concept should not be as sociated with illne s s . In the case of a mother who i s sufficiently acculturated t o seek help at a hospital, i t may be pos sible to convince her that mal­nutrition can be cured with peanut foods . To the ave rage Chimbu woman, however, such an idea would conflict with her beliefs in the c ause s and cures of s ickne s s . Whe re there is no obvious cause , illne s s is attributed either to sorc ery, or to an offended ance stor spirit, or to the failure to observe some ritual practice . One instanc e of malnutrition near Mintima was s aid to have been caused by an omission in the mother ' s puberty rite ; another was attribut ed to the mother ' s failure to kill her pig in the traditional 'pigs ' graveyard ' .

On the other hand, the ' health value ' of c ertain in­digenous foods is appreciated . On the basis of scientific evidenc e, the re quired nutritional properties for any benefit to health may not actually exist in the food; the important point i s that there is an association betw e en food and health. One example would be sugar cane , which is eaten for energy and strength; another would be rstrong 1 banana (tagemba), · which a woman e ats imme diately after c hildbirth, to strengthen and t ighten her stomach . So the idea of peanut butter to fatten and strengthen a baby does not conflict with t raditional belief .

Thus, in the field, the idea of peanut butte r to 'cure ' sick and malnourished infants should be avoide d; the emphasis in peanut propaganda must be on the 'grease ' content of peanut butter which will be correlated with the likenes s of pig 'grease ' . The fat of the pig carc ass has a high pre stige value as a food . There should be a sharp line o f demarcation between the work of the hospitals in malnutrition and extension work aimed at all infants in the community, both healthy and sick . It would be preferable that extension workers avoid any assoc iation with the hospitals in the minds of the people .

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The pilot project in the Waiye area was initially conducted for the most part through the Aid Posts, with delegation of autho rity and c e rtain responsibility to the Aid Post Orderlies . It was concluded that Aid Posts definitely do not constitute the most effective means of promoting peanut butter at the village level. Several reasons for this are suggested : { a ) the Aid Post is as sociated with s icknes s, and a mothe r should not be made to feel that she is giving her baby peanut butte r bec ause it is sick; (b) the Aid Posts in Chimbu are by no means an acc epted in-stitution . The efficacy of European medicine is never doubte d, yet the people do not always want to believe in it, as it s methods are contrary to those of any t raditional belief; ( c ) the A. P. 0 . has little status i n the community . He c an never 's ing out ' as the Councillors and recognized leaders do - he would be ridiculed if he did . Consequently, unles s he has the support of thes e 'big men ' , he cannot summon people to any communal activities at the Aid Post, or to help him with work in the peanut seed gardens; d ) the Aid Posts are not the best location for the peanut seed gardens . The ground is invariably the poore st plot in the area so that maximal yields are not obtained; and the land for an Aid Post becomes Council property, so that no - one feels individually responsible to help the A. P. 0. in its upkeep . Peanut seed is best distribut e d to individuals for planting in their own gardens, or given to a leader who has offered a large tract of land and who has the authority to call upon people to help in the cultivation; e ) all activities conducted at an Aid Post and in the open clearing before it ( First Aid, Infant Welfare Clinic s , Councilor ' s 'Courts ' , coffee - buying, lucky games, and Council meetings ) are European­introduce d . No traditional institutions such as marriage ce remonie s or food distributions are eve r to be found the re . Conversely, the traditional me eting- grounds are not rcontaminated ' by borrowed institutions . It is obvious that to ensure the lasting succ ess of changing a food patte rn, it must be integrated with the existing culture pattern and divorc ed from European- orientated activitie s and concepts .

Agricultural worke rs and offic ers and assistants are highly regarded in Chimbu as they are conc e rned with one of the most important aspects of life in Chimbu - subsistence gardening . Moreover, they are conc e rned with cash c ropping, poss ibly the only European innovation which, unlike Christianity and the c e s s ation of t ribal fighting, has given the people the hope and the means of ac quiring material wealth . Agricultural workers in the

9 9

field can greatly ass ist the peanut project by the distribution of se ed, and by advising on the best methods of peanut cultivation.

In r eviewing the effect of schools it must be pointed out that the children in Chimbu exercise little or no influenc e in the home . Health habits and hygiene that they have learnt at school are soon forgotten, and it is doubtful whether anything they have been taught is transmitted to other members of the family . However, in some well-organized boarding schools and mis sion schools, with their own peanut gardens, the installation of a peanut grinder could prove worthwhile . It must be remembe red that in s eve ral years ' time, those children given peanut butter at school, will have families of the ir own .

The value of working through a mis s ion depends on the degre e of influence it has upon the lives of the people . The more lasting reforms and inroads in the people ' s culture have been incepte d by the Mis s ions . The sympathetic approach of Father Nille s in his efforts to blend the old culture with the so- called new culture, is not unappreciated by his vast Chimbu following . The approval and active b acking of Father Nilles and the Miss ion has reinforc e d to some extent our own educative efforts made under the auspice s of the Administration . Such c o - operation, as w as experienc e d at Mingende, serves to illustrat e how close liaison betw e en a mis sion and the Administrat ion can be of benefit in reinforc ing a change of attitudes and customs .

Techniques inducing change

Informal discus s ion proved to be the most effective method of disseminating information on peanut butter fe eding, in conjunction with repeated demonstrations of peanut grinding . One of the great advantage s of living in the field i s that one c an maintain a close and informal relationship with the people, which is e s sential in this type of extension work. Little can be achieved by 'lecturing' the people and as suming an authoritarian attitude .

Recognized leaders and spokesmen are the s o - c alled ' b ig men ' with whom work w as done with in the Koronigl Council area to organize the 'peanut houses ' . It should be explained that a peanut house i s a s imple structure very comparable to a coffee house, the latter being a great centre of interest as this

1 00

is where the coffee buyer will make his purchases of coffee from the people . Generally, the peanut house is built on the forme rly used c eremonial grounds, or as c lose as possible . The idea is that the members of a rline ' (usually a clan section), unde r the supervis ion of the r ecognized le ade r or Councillor, construct a small cane shelter to hous e a drum-top stove and a peanut grinder, the latte r being purchased by the people themselve s . The fact that the group actually own and maintain their own grinder has largely contributed to their intere st in the scheme .

It is most important that the locally recognized leaders and spokesmen are identified, for often the case is one whe reby the Councillor is in fact only a ' go - betwe en ' for the real leade rs . Sometimes they are the authorized hereditary leaders of a sub­clan, sometime s they are men who are leaders by nature, and sometimes they are the nominal le ade rs repre senting a clan section in the Counc il . But they are the men with re al influence , their opinions are respected and their example often followed .

The ass istance a Councillor afforde d the scheme varied from one individual to anothe r, according to their degree of interest in the project, and the extent of re spect and authority they had with their 'line ' . A 'line ' corresponds approximately with a clan section, and usually one Councillor repre sents the members of one c lan section. Again, it would appear to be impe rative that the actual leaders are recognized and their co­operation enli sted .

Summary of favourable and unfavourable factors in acc eptance

In conclusion, it may be said that ( 1 ) the project had the initial advantage that peanuts were a familiar food c rop in Chimbu, so that their cultivation was not a new and strange experience re quiring major adjustments in garden practic e ; ( 2 ) one of the customary methods of cooking peanuts in the home i s suitable for us e in the preparation of peanut butter ; ( 3 ) peanuts have fortunately not taken on any magi co- religious significanc e ( as have many indigenous foods ), which might com­plicate their use in infant fe eding; ( 4 ) even where peanuts have supposedly replac ed the pig in areas of some mis sion influenc e, they have not become a status food; they are use d in food distributions, often in vast quantities , yet seldom comprise

1 0 1

part of a marriage payment or a death exchange ; ( 5 ) peanuts are popular as a food with all m embers of the family in Chimbu; they are eaten fre quently as a snack rather than with any me al; ( 6 ) maximum effort was concentrated on encouraging the concept of peanut butte r as a baby food - whole pe anut s are a good food for everyone, but peanut butte r is 'mushy ' like the indigenous weaning foods, and is not suitable food for grown m en and women; ( 7) in the Waiye area the cultivation of peanuts has been largely displac ed by coffee c ash- c ropping; the lack of pe anuts and the reluctance to give valuable garden land for s e ed plots hampered the project in the e arly stages ; ( 8 ) in the c ase of tho s e families who were willing to put some of their land under peanuts, the distribution of seed was mo st suc c es sful, with the harve sts re­sulting in inc reased attendance at all grinding c linic s ; ( 9 ) due to its inception at the hospital, and its promulgation through the aid- po sts , the peanut - butter- for- babies conc ept is in some areas as soc iated with sick infants only, and at first only the undernourished infants w ere brought to the grinding clinics ; ( 1 0 ) in Chimbu, authority is ve ste d in the male - he makes the dec isions on all matte rs of importance, which nec e s s itates his conversion to an idea first, before the extension worker c an enlist the participation of his wife ; ( 1 1 ) the nominal leaders in the group are not always tho se men with the most influenc e and authority in the community; ( 1 2 ) grinding clinic s e stablished at aid po sts proved le ss suc c e ssful than w as antic ipat ed; time and effort should, to some extent, be continued, but gradually les s ened as other avenues of extens ion wo rk are proven more suc c e s sful; and ( 1 3 ) it is felt that the most effective method of promoting the peanut project has been by informal discus sion with the r ec ognised leaders and spokesmen who, with the members of their clan s ections, have been given the responsi­bility of buying a grinder and maintaining i t for communal use .

Recommendations for future action

It may also be said, in conclusion, that ( 1 ) all ho spitals in the area using peanut butter in the treatment of malnutrition cases should have their own peanut gardens so as to be corn -pletely self- suffic ient; ( 2 ) in an are a where peanuts are not plentiful, s e e d should be distributed in small amounts to familie s for planting on their own land; ( 3 ) the help of agri ­cultural e xtens ion workers should be enlisted for this distribution of s e e d and for advising the people on the best methods of pe anut

1 02

c ultivation; ( 4 ) only the Virginia Bunch variety of peanut should be used in seed distribution, and the replanting of mixed varieties discouraged; ( 5 ) i t is prefe rable that s eed gardens be on in­dividually owned land rather than at aid po sts or on Administration land which is not usually very productive; ( 6 ) before attempting to introduce the peanut project in an area, a short study should be made, eithe r by means of comprehensive que stionnaires or by a trained fieldworker, to determine : ( a) in what ways if any, c ertain aspects of the scheme may conflict with relevant customs and attitudes , and (b ) which methods of extension work would be likely to prove most effective in that particular culture group; ( 7) if peanut butter is to be promote d as a supplementary food for all infants in the community, it should not be introduced to the people as a ' cure for sick undernourished babies ' but as a 'good food to make babies fat and strong ' ; ( 8 ) in an area where Infant Welfare Clinic s are well attended, and where men are not the dominant sex to the extent they are in Chimbu, the Clinic s could be an effective means of promulgating peanut butte r infant feeding; ( 9 ) s imilarly, in an area where it is admired for women to be 'progre ss ive ' , Women ' s Clubs could be of value in the dis semination of information; ( 1 0 ) where Missions are influential, their active support should be enlisted; ( 1 1 ) pref er­ably, however, extension work should be aime d directly at the village level, whether Councillors or not, who can be given responsibility in the project ; ( 1 2 ) in les s sophisticated areas, drum-top stove s c an be distribute d to thes e leaders, for communal roasting of peanuts and also to s erve as status symbols for thes e men; ( 1 3 ) unles s there is a ready surplus of peanuts in an area, the project should be aimed init ially at infants , and the concept of peanut butter as a baby food incul­c ated upon the minds of the people; and ( 1 4 ) wherever pos s ible, the addition of s alt to the peanut butter should be avoided as it makes it more palatable to adults , and in many areas it is a medium of exchange which would be thought unsuitable in a baby food .

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Experience s of peanut fe eding in the Chimbu District

Noah Temgwe

( Department of Public Health, Territory of Papua and New Guinea)

I was born in Roussel Island twenty- s even years ago . Rouss el Island i s a small i sland of approximately 1 3 0 square miles situated on the far e aste rn tip of the group of small islands that lie c lose to New Guine a ' s tail . Rous sel Island is a quarter o f the s i ze o f the Chimbu area of the Easte rn Highlands and has 1 500 people as against 1 62 , O O O Chimbus . My mother still lives in a village c alled Damunu but my fathe r died when I w as six years old, and I have one brother and one sister also at Damunu . I started at a small school in my village at the age of six years and then was s ent at the age of eleven years by the Methodist Mis s ion to a large r school at Mis sima Island which is two days journey by boat away. This was a large boarding s chool of over 2 00 pupils and here I spent three years up to Grade III .

When I was 14 years old I worked as a Government ho spital orderly at Misima hospital learning medical work, treatments dres sings and so on. After two years there I dec ided to go back to school . I went to the Government school in Misima where I stayed one and a half years and pas s e d Grade V . Then i n 1 9 56 the Government sent me t o the Sogeri high school clo se to Port Moresby whe re I stayed two years and passed Grade VII .

In 1 9 5 8 I joined the Papuan Medical College where I stayed for four years ; for the first three years learning the work of a hospital assistant . This consists mainly of nursing duties and is s imilar to the training given to trainee nurses in Australia, with a bigger emphasis, of course , on t ropical dise as es . After three years ' training I did a further year ' s course for a medical ass istant including two months ' field work at Goroka . I graduated a trained medic al ass istant in April 1 9 6 2, and was posted in May of that ye ar to Gumine . I was one of the first batch of graduate s from the me dical assistant ' s course .

At Gumine I was in joint charge of a 1 0 0 bed native

1 04

hospital together with a fell ow graduate medi cal assistant Mr . Toule Tarabi who comes from Finschhafen on the New Guinea mainland . Gumine is a bas e hospital s erving a population of 4 0, OOO and the outlying areas being served by fifteen aid-posts in the care of Aid­Post Orde rlies . These are Grade 2 or 3 men trained in elemen­tary first aid, and the treatment s of such tropic al dis eases as malaria, dys entery, scabie s etc . and other dis ease s such as pneumonia . They give penic illin inj ections, nivaquin tablets, do dre ssings and so on, and only refer the sicker patients to Gumine ho spit al .

At Gumine the main diseases treated are malaria, pneumonia, infected scabies and other like skin dis eas es, traumatic cases such as burns , lacerations and fractures , the odd case of leprosy and a few cas e s of cirrho sis of the liver probably of dietary origin . Hookworm and round worm in­festations are almost universal and probably lead to a lowered resistanc e to other diseases such as malaria and pneumonia, but do not alone cause many deaths . Malnutrition is reasonably common and a few of kwashiorkor are also seen .

At Gumine Mr . T oule Tarabi and I starte d us ing peanut butter, pe anut balls and a combination of peanut butter and banana or peanut butter and sweet potato for cases of mal­nutrition, late in 1 9 6 2 . Previous to this the only supplementary feeding given had been milk ( tinned full cream or non- fat milk ) and casinal powde r .

After introduc ing peanut butter a s a supplementary food in Gumine, I was transferre d to Kerowagi, also in the Chimbu area, in e arly 1 9 63 . Ke rowagi is a 9 0 bed ho spital s erving 2 7� O O O Chimbus with a s imilar disease pattern as at Gumine, but rather more admissions from malaria, as Kerowagi includes the eastern end of the Wahgi river flats , where malaria is much more common. At Kerowagi I have 14 male hospital orderlies and two female hospital orderlie s and 1 3 aid - posts in the Kerowagi sub- district it self .

At Kerowagi under instruc tions from Dr . Tuz a I intro­duced peanut butter as a supplementary fee ding to malnutrition and kwashiorko r c as e s . This had not been tried at Kerowagi before, the only supplementary f.eeding given being milk and c as inal as in Gumine previously.

1 0 5

All c as e s of malnutrition, mainly the older infants (one to 2 t years ) deprived early of their mother ' s milk supply by a new -born brother or sister or perhaps by sickne ss of the mother, were given peanut butter produc ed by grinding previously roasted pe anuts in a hand- operated Beatrix corn mill . The peanut butter produc ed by this grinder is a rather darker colour than the bought Sanitarium peanut butter, but has about the s ame oily consistency . This is e ithe r given as a peanut butter ball about the s ize o r a little larger than an egg held by the infant in his hand or is mixed with mashed banana or boiled kau kau and fed with a spoon . Another method of presentation is to give a liberal filling of peanut butter inside a split banana as a sort of s andwich .

In the main children like peanut butte r e ither as a straight peanut butter ball if they ar e old enough to hold in the hand, or as peanut butte r s andwich with a split banana as the 'bread ' . Peanut­banana as a mushy spoon- fed mixture is less popular, poss ibly partly bec aus e the mothers are not used to spoons and the babies perhaps also resent this method of feeding . It must be remem­be red that all food apart from bre ast milk is eaten by hand - if mushy such as boiled pumpkin, then eaten off a banana leaf or some such leaf, i f firm such as corn or sweet potato eat en as we would a c ake held directly in the hand . A spoon is alien to the indigine and this may account for some difficulty with the younger infant and the spoon-fed banana- peanut butter mash .

Howeve r peanut- banana is fed to infants from the age of three months and after initial problems most of the younger infants accept both the mixture and the spoon. Older infants being used to a handful of cooked sweet potato take to the peanut ball and the banana- pe anut butter s andwich held in the hand very well .

The peanuts at first were bought at the twic e w eekly 'bung ' or market held at the ho spital where sweet potato, greens etc . are also bought . As this supply was rather inconstant -sometime s too much, sometimes too little - I arrange d for guardians of hospital patients to plant two large plots of peanuts each about t an ac re in extent, and by mid 1 9 6 3 thes e were productive . Peanuts take between 3 t and 5 months to mature at Ke rowagi which is 5, 2 5 0 fe et above s ea level . Sinc e then another hospital plot has b e en planted but is not yet ready to harvest .

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Since September 1 9 6 2 four Papuan and New Guine an trained nurses have been stationed at the Kerowagi hospital taking the plac e of European s iste rs who were based at Kundiawa ( 1 7 miles to the East ) and who had pr eviously held infant welfare c linic s in the Kerowagi are a .

Since the se loc al girls have taken over the c linic s at Kerowagi, the number of c linic s held has been increased from four a month to s ixteen clinic s held in the villages and four held at the hospital for loc al Ke row agi mothers . The number of babies and children attending the clinic s has inc reased from 4 9 0 under five and 4 4 over five to 2 , 5 2 8 under five and 1 , 2 3 8 ove r five .

Peanut, in the forms above, has been us ed by the s e Papuan and New Guine an nurses sinc e May 1 9 6 3 a s a supple ­mentary fee ding to babies s een in the clinic s . The mothers are encouraged to bring roasted peanuts (generally cooked either in a stove or tre e - trunk mumu oven, or on old 44 gallon drum tops ) to the c linic s and the nur ses grind them into a . peanut paste for the infant s . In actual fact very few pe anuts are brought into clinic s, and whereas mother s with malnourished babies will demand peanut butter for their babies when they come into hospital, they seem at pre sent to as sociate the peanut fee ding with sickness rather than health .

It is hoped that the example of suc c es s e s in the hospital will slowly ove rcome this prejudice and encourage the mothers to use peanuts more and more for well babies as a protein supplementary fee d . Some success along these lines has been encountered at Kundiawa, where full time Europeans for ove r a year and now a trained New Guine an health educ ator have been promoting peanuts as a supplementary fee ding for healthy babies as well a:s c as e s of malnutrition .

Considering that I have a 9 0 bed hospital, 1 3 aid- posts and 2 7, O O O people to patrol and s ee at least onc e ye arly, a hospital demonstration of the value of tre ating malnourished children with peanut butter, combine d with discuss ions between the clinic si sters and village mother s, is the scope of my effort to encourage similar change of heart in the Ke rowagi area . How­ever the programme has only been introduc ed into Kerowagi for s even months at the pre s ent time and good progres s in hospital use and acc eptanc e is alre ady evident .

1 0 7

Discus sion (following Mr . Temgw e ' s paper )

Unknown : Do the pe anuts have to be baked and ground to be of any nutritional value ? I have seen children in New Guinea bringing fresh uncooked peanuts to school as play lunch .

Bailey: Proper proce s sing with a grinder is very im­portant to produce a fine paste . The mor e roughly ground peanuts, such as are produc ed in an ordinary household mincer, are not properly digested by infants , children or adults . I beli eve that the only way to make pe anuts digestible for infants , children or adults is to roast them as desc ribed in my paper and to grind them with the Beatrix Mill, or an e quivalent proc e s sing . With all other methods we have found difficult ies .

Chairman : Is a raw peanut of any nutritional value ?

Bailey: I cannot s ay that it is of no value, but I c an s ay that it is of pos itive harm in a perc entage of cases .

Unknown : Surely cooking and b aking will destroy a number of vitamins in the peanuts o r in other w ays harm them.

Bailey: It does not destroy the protein value, it improves it, by destroying the trypsin inhibitor .

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General discus sion

Chairman, Sir John Crawford

Profe ssor Thomas Stapleton : The remarks by Mr . Tomas etti reflect the practical approach of those working in the Territory. On a rec ent visit I was struck by the remarkable spe ed with which the Administration has been coping with the problems of the Chimbu are a . Some spe akers have implied that development has been going rather slowly, but having visited other areas with s imilar difficult terrain where efforts have been made over longer perio ds to change the condition of the people, I could not agree that the advances have been slow . The commonsense attitudes of the Patrol Officers and the A . D . O ' s have been important contributory facto rs in progres s . Certainly one o f the difficultie s has been the fre quency of change s in staff, so that sometimes something started with enthusiasm by one pe rson has not been continued .

Mention has been made that there i s only one qualified doctor in the Chimbu are a . This disadvantage is off- set to a cons ide rable extent by the good quality of the indigenous New Guinean medic al assistants, who display clinical acumen and keen attention to patient c are . They confirmed the impress ion that has been gained in many unde r- developed countrie s, that much of what is needed to give e s sential me dical c are can be learnt in a comparatively short training period . Indeed, a pe rson who understands the people may be much mo re effective in s ituations like Chimbu than the more sophisticated person who finds it difficult not to compare loc al conditions with tho se which he has been us ed to in a technologic ally developed soc iety .

The suggestion that the adoption of European clothing should wait on the development of hygiene is sensible . For many years to come, the people of the Chimbu will not have housing or w ashing facilities s uitable for the widespread intro ­duction o f Europe an clothing .

Seve ral speake rs have indicated that the Administration should have gre ater financ ial re sources at its disposal . The re is no person developing anything anywhere who c annot do with more money, but if more money is to be made available it is important that the prioritie s in it s use are correct . Although I am a paediatrician, I would put inc reased expenditure on

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medical care low on the list of prioritie s, with roads, educ ation and agriculture at the top . The provision of these fac ilities is , if looked at other than in the most short -term w ay, go ing to be of gre ater value to health . This is recognis ed in the following quotation from the review of the Director of Public Health for the Territory in his Annual Report 1 9 62 - 1 9 63 : -

' The inc rease in the numbers of trained indigenous staff has allowed a significant shift in emphasis to public health activity, and at the same time laid the foundations for a medic al servic e that this country can afford .

There are many roads to good health . Better health follows succes sful economic ventures and better education, and always the he alth worker must be alert to recognise and encourage progre ss in sphere s not directly assoc iated with health aims, but in the long run perhaps bringing better net health gains . 1

In some developing countries tho s e who have become educ ated have t ended to feel that they are too superior to do ma�ual work . Thus, in the provision of more educ ation, the slogan rEduc ation with Labour ' might well be applied, so that he who has become literate does not consider that he should confine his activitie s to the office desk .

Chairman : I am glad that Professor Stapleton has spoken as he has, becaus e he has reminded us that the subj ect of this symposium is �an integrated approach to nutrition and soc iety ' . He for his part has sugge ste d c ertain priorit ies .

Sir George Currie : We found that the people did recognise that e ducation for health should have a high priority in the development of higher educ ation but it was gratifying to me, s inc e I was onc e a Profe ssor of Agriculture, that they usually put agricu ltural education first in their list of prioritie s ! After that they usually placed medical men to cure diseas e as the next choice and then teachers, engineers and scientists . They had a very practic al outlook on highe r education . They wanted first the professional and technic al training which would help to develop their country and the health training to reduc e the load of disease .

I ' d like to ask firstly, what i s the attitude of parents in the

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Chimbu towards the e duc ation of their children and more particularly towards the educ ation of their girls ? Secondly, what has been the experienc e, particularly in the Highlands, of the introduction of the soya bean ? This bean has been so very useful in many parts of the world that I ' d like to know its present status and likely future as a c rop in the Territory? Thirdly, doe s the panel think that the ordinary machinery of Government is not enough to ensure integration of development and if so what better me ans could they sugge st to ensure a more effective integrated approach to the development of the Territory and the well being of the people ?

Brookfield: Profe s sor Stapleton suggests that the rate of progress may be s atisfactory. As s e s sment of a rate of progress is subj ective and depends largely on whe re one has been pre ­viously, and on what comparisons one makes in one ' s mind . I have not been to the Himalayas, and would not compare New Guinea with remote corners of the former British Indian Empire . I would think for example of Kenya, or of places nearer home such as Fij i which have progre ssed very much faster . Professor Stapleton and I must agree to differ on this subject . On the question of prio rities , on the other hand, I find mys elf in com­plete agreement with what he s aid . I feel that the ne eds of economic development and of communic ations are paramount : indeed, I would put communic ations first . Sir George has posed the question of what sort of an Authority I would sugge st to achieve an integrated approach, and whether this Authority should be inside or outside the Gove rnment . This is a very large question, and I would not wish to appear dogmatic in answering it . Community development programme s in the manner outlined by Mr . Tomasetti are being c arried out in many parts of the wo rld, but not always as part of an organized plan . I believe that in New Guinea there should be something like a National Development Authority, with over- riding powers , and that i t should have s econded to i t members of the staff of different departments such as Native Affairs, Agriculture , Works, Public He alth and so on. Such an Authority should have the task of drawing up priorities and getting things moving as energetic ally as pos sible, and of course it must be provided with suffic ient funds .

Brown : Chimbu parents want their children to have a higher standing of living; they want them to ride in c ars, to wear nic e clothes, live in nice hous es, to have money to spend in the

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shop, and so on . They know that this does not come out of a subsistence economy, and they know that tho s e people who have had training, and are in jobs as drivers , clerks , carpenters , and other jobs with the Administration, have more of the se things . This is as far as their horizon goe s . They never see any other sorts of skill . They know that amongst the better trained people are the teachers in primary schools . They hope that their children may t ake ove r this kind of job, but they really have no cle ar conc eption of what education means exc ept in the general way to prepare them for a better kind of life .

Dick : We have been growing soya beans in the High­lands ever since the war and they do very well . We have trials going at the 7, 0 0 0 - 8, OOO ft . altitude levels which are too high for peanuts , and I think it is ve ry likely that soya b e ans will grow suc c e ssfully the r e . At the 5, O O O · - 6, O O O ft . altitudes the soya beans are growing ve ry well and yields are up to world standards .

Tomasetti : An ideal system would require 2 or 3 levels of planning. The choic e is not between a regional or a c entral planning authority . Both are needed . Howeve r I emphasise that planning must be done as close as pos sible to the problem by the repre sentat ives of various departments and the people on the spot . Those who are re sponsible for the implement at ion of the loc al planning should have fac ilities for coming together in the planning . At the territory level there is a need for a policy dec iding body . This should be servic e d by a planning s ecretariat . If an outside body is to plan at district level we will be complica­t ing the problem immeasurably. The main principal in community development programme s is not that public servants should look at an are a and determine its needs. as they see them, and then try to c lamp their programme over the are a, but that the people who are being developed state their needs . They may of course nee d assist anc e i n doing thi s . Thes e various projects are built up into a programm e . Certainly central government planning will be nec essary to provide the complementary resourc e s . For instanc e, if fifty villages say they want a school next year they c an 't have one unles s the c entral government has planned to have the teache rs available and funds to help with the buildings . Plan -ning should be within the government but delegat ed as much as po ssible to the people on the spot . However the whole proc e s s should originate from the people conc e rned .

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Chairman : This is an extremely difficult question, made the more difficult bec aus e of the proc ess of political development and change which is going on. I re spect the views of Dr . Brook­field but I think the last thing we should do would be to establish a body with an ove r- riding authority. The real problem is the development of a s ense of political responsibility. The New Guinea people must develop an awarene s s that re sourc es must be allocated between different act ivitie s and between different regions . The Chimbu people, for e xample , may be relatively badly served as we learnt this morning . They are likely to be badly served unles s there is some instrument in Port Moresby for reviewing allocation of re sourc es between the various regions and not m erely as b etween the functions : education, health, agriculture and so on. I strongly favour a Central Planning Authority for New Guine a . I also favour the gradual working into the Planning Authority the people who are to gove rn their own affairs . I cannot see any purpo se to be served by s etting up some extra- parliamentary body with over- riding authority.

Dr . Norma McArthur : It seems to me that before anyone starts talking about planning one e s sential requirement is better data on population structure throughout the whole of the territory . Of all the t erritories in the South West Pacific area there is only one that has wors e population statistic s . Population statistic s does not re st with knowing the numb ers of people, but in knowing how tho s e total numbe rs are changing . For this you nee d to know ve ry much more about the age structure of the population, more about mortality rates at different ages , and more about fert ility rate� . You can do something about this providing you have reasonable est imate s of the ages of people of the population . Regarding rates of inc rease of the population I agree with Dr . Shand that improvement in the rates of death from malnutrition in children would make only infinite simal changes in the pre sent rates of populat ion growth . However the eradication of the effects of malnutrition on pregnancy and lactation may have quite diffe rent effects on the rate of population growth . Fertility rate is a much gre ater dete rminant of population growth than is mortality rate . If this pe anut butter is fed to women who are alre ady pregnant there is not going to be very much change in the pattern of fertility . But it may well happen that if pe anut butter is fed to them whilst they are lactating, this practic e may ult imately have important cons e quences on the likelihood of sub ­s equent conception. This would completely change the picture of

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fertility rates . One of the things we know very little about are the social determinents of fertility. This is something that should be taken into account in planning community proj ects . The effect of the breaking down of tabus on sexual intercourse during lactation may have profound effects on the pattern of fertility and the future rate of growth of the Chimbu population . The populations that are inc reasing fastest in the world today are those where mortality rates have been reduc ed by medical techni ques but where birth rates are high . In Papua- New Guinea mortality rates have be en reduc ed but the re has been no comparable effort to reduce the rates of fertility to levels such as we in Australia enjoy . I agree with Professor Stapleton that Health Se rvice s should be low on the list of any priority for Papua- New Guinea .

Kaad : Dr . McArthur ' s c ritism of the statistic s for Papua and New Guine a should be seen in perspective . We have over 2 million people in the Territories . The next large st population in the Pac ific would be about 2 0 0, 000 . We must look at the lack of development in the Chimbu are a in relation to the development of the Territory as a whole . The Chimbu area has only come into prominenc e in the last 20 years . Should we not give greater relative ass istance to people who have had contact with Europeans s ince about 1 88 0, and who have alre ady pro­gre s s e d a fair w ay along the road of change ? Should we, for example, send our agricultural officers along to a place which at first s ight appears to off e r little prospect of economic develop­ment ? Should we, as has happened, send them to a plac e like New Britain where the cocoa proj ect is bringing the New Guinean planters an income of about £ 1 , O O O, OOO a ye ar ? The s e are priorities which must be faced . Everyone will agree that development programme s must be integrated . Mr . Tomasetti did not touch on two aspects ve ry deeply . One i s the que stion of financ e . The R egional Development Committees must have some funds with which to work . The othe r aspect is that you must have the people on side . The government officers , as sisted by scienti sts , must be able to give the people a series of alter­native s . You c an 't s imply go along to people and s ay, ' What would you like to do ? ' However, an expatriate government officer will neve r get nearly as much done as will an indigenous officer who i s properly traine d . So you nee d a lot more money to spend at the loc al level, and you need more indigenous officers planning along thes e line s . This is happening at the

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moment but people ask why has it not gone on before . For answer, one must look to priorities and find out what happened after the war . Then the first priority was given to health . This was probably because the expenditure of one shilling would cure all sorts of di seases and you could s e e something for the money. If money had be en spent on education you could have spent hundreds of thous ands of pounds just to get toole d·- up, that i s to get your teachers ready and get them out into the field. This explains why the educational system has been lagging. I feel strongly that some Central Planning Authority is nec e s sary. Planning at the regional level c annot proc eed unles s ade quate support is given from a Central Government Authority.

Brookfield : My comments on a Development Authority in relation to an integrated approach have be en slightly mis ­understood . I feel the ne ed for a centralized Development Authority for the reasons that Mr . Kaad suggests, but also for an additional reason. While it is the New Guine a people must be brought into co - operative association with any c entral or regional planning authority, I would not feel happy at this stage about starting planning from the grass roots upward, on the lines suggested by Mr . Tomas etti . My reason is simply that I do think any plan would eme rge this way. At this time I do not think undue fear of coercing people should influenc e our thinking . The Chimbu, like most people in New Guinea, are no strangers to coercion: they have been coerc e d for years . The Administration has coerc e d them s inc e 1 9 3 3 , and in their own society they are coerc ed all the time . They know of no other way of getting anything done but coercion . It may well be that our attempts to s et up something like We stern parlia­mentary democracy in New Guinea will meet with the s ame fate that such attempts have suffered in many other ex- colonial territo ries - especially in Africa . It may well be that it is just not an appropriate form of government for soc ieties at this level of organiz ation . One thing, I think, is quire certain : that as soon as there is a c entrali zed native administrat ion in power in Port_ More sby, co erc ion will be unstintingly applied to get things done at the loc al level .

The last thing I wish to do is to critic ize the field officers in New Guine a . I have nothing but admiration for them, and for what they have been doing over the years in plac es like Chimbu . They have been cont inually striving to

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achieve miracle s on a shoestring, and if they do not rec eive from the indigenes the appr eciation that their efforts des e rve, this is bec ause the indigene s see only the poor re sults deriving from totally inade quate resourc es, and not the tremendous efforts put in by the individual field office rs .

Clement s : Although the nutritional problems of the Territory are probably not of gre at magnitude, or nec e s s arily will they effect rate of populat ion growth, they do pres ent problems to people working in the field, who are perhaps looking to this symposium for some guidance . The point has been made that nutrition and nutritional problems c annot be s een in isolation but must be viewed in the tot al social and e conomic perspe ct ive . The foods available to a people belong to their value s ystem. I listened very intensively to see what info rmation could be obtained from the other disciplines that might help to plac e foods and food problems in the current value system of the Chimbu people . The health and medical people should not try to do this alone . They ne ed help from other disc iplines . In any community there are three kinds of people, tho s e who know the answe rs to current problems and don 't need much help (these people come to the public meetings and support baby health clinic s and so on); secondly tho s e who don 't know they don 't know, and who are willing to come along and have some help and finally, thos e who don 't want to know . In an adult educ ation programme you have to work with the first and second groups . In order to work with any group you must know where your subject fits into the total value system. I wonder whether the anthropologists have given thought how they can help the health workers and whether the health people have given sufficient thought as to how the anthropologists c an help them . In particular, how the he alth workers can influence the adults bec ause this is a phase of adult education. If you want mothers to grow peanuts and to give their babies peanut butter then this is an e duc ational programme . Would anyone on the panel comment on how they see the health workers and the anthropologists combining on a programme of adult educ ation .

Brown : This is the first time I have been asked to ---

help anybody on any programme whatever . I would be happy to help but I don 't think this is quite the situation her e . As far as the Chimbu and his nutritional problems are conce rned, it took the nutritional programme to inform the Chimbu people

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that there was anything wrong with their infant feeding practic e s . I think it has be en clear from the later papers in the symposium that a lot of Chimbus are not yet convinced that there is anything wrong with the normal feeding of children. The awareness that something can be done with the obviously malnourished infant has however been developing.

Tuza : This morning Dr. Brown inferre d that with peanut butter we cannot solve the malnutrition problem in Chimbu infants . She i s absolutely right, but we , the field offic ers, have a problem with sick people . We s e e some successes with peanut butte r . It i s a useful aid in solving the problem.

Unknown : I am a chemical engineer and have been con­c erned with the development of loc al industries in the under­developed countries of the Middle East . The development of loc al industries is a very effective method of raising the standard of living in the underdeveloped areas . Between the two extremes of a Robinson C rusoe type industry such as the peanut butter project, and the e stablishment of an oil well, there are many pos s ibilities . The problem is to utilize the local skills and local materials, whether these be vegetable, mineral or animal . In the Chimbu you have limestone and water pow e r . It might be possible to e stablish a local industry base d on these two as sets . Such an industry could stimulate the employment of relatively unskilled people . It would help to give an outlet to the products of the educational programme .

Shand : All the poss ibilities for local industry such as you have mentione d should be investigated, but from what I know of the raw material s ituation in the Chimbu area, it s e ems to me to be better to concentrate developmental capital and resourc es on agricultural pro ducts . If a c rop can be found that can be in­tensively cultivated in the area (and I do not think that all pos sible avenues have yet been explore d) this loc al agricultural industry should be pushed forw ard. All type s of industry should be inve stigated, but it s eems that agricultural industries offer the best prospects .

Unknown : Do you think an improved nutritional state of the people would le ade to an increase in their work capac ity and therefore the e arning capacity ?

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Bailey: I do not think the re i s likely to be any substantial improvement either in work c apacity or mental development as a result of improved nutrition . The people are alre ady c ap able of astounding physical fe at s .

Dr . Muriel Bell : The point was made at the World Food Congre ss 1 9 6 3 that the incidence of kwashiorkor is an important matter in the future development of mental capacity .

Dick : Is the standard of nutrition affecting the work capacity of the se people ?

Hipsley: R egardless of whether or not the wo rk capacity would be improved by better nutrition, and I believe that this improvement is likely to be slight, the main limitat ions on work capacity are not matte rs of physical health and nutrition, but are conc e rne d with attitudes to life .

Chairman: Ever s inc e I was asked to chair the symposium I have frankly been worried about what it means . It begins with peanuts , which would s e em to denote an unimportant subj ect . However it ends up with a dis cussion of the whole problem of a changing soc iety. The t it le of the symposium is therefo re not inappropriate . Beginning with the pe anut solution to the problem of infant malnutrition, I find myself not quite sure whether peanuts i s the only approach, or whether soya beans should have a bigger plac e, or whether there are othe r c rops . I only hope that the ve ry practical approach by Dr . Bailey can be extended to other pos sible protein supplements . However the intere sting thing to me is that the problem of malnutrition gave rise to this symposium . It is a challenging situation to anyone looking at the s lides we s aw of malnourished infants . Yet we are assured that curing it might not make very much differenc e to the standard of living or t o the rate o f population growth . Some of the spe akers sugge sted, and in fact it almost suggests itself, that too much emphasis is being given to the problem of malnutrition. However I would like to ask ' What do we me an by priorit ies ' . It has become very cle ar that we are dealing with a people in transition. There i s change in the political structure, accompanied by some disintegration of existing organization; and quite c learly bewilde rment and disappointed expectations are associated with economic changes . The new economy w as not fully unde rstood by the Chimbu people . Nevertheless money and

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progre s s s eem to go together . Progress had not been as rapid as had been expected by the people themselves . Who could expect the Chimbu people to understand the International Coffee Agreement and the world market for coffee . But behind all this problem of transition is a r ecognition that the re are a gre at many things to be done, and that educ ation is a fundamental investment, whatever the rest of the programme . This e duc ation however turns out to be often useles s without some othe r changes going on concurrently . It will be one of the gre at tragedies of Papua and New Guinea if we find that people get into grade 6 or 7 or what ever it may be, and that there are no opportunities to employ the ir education. This again points to the need for insuring that the e mployment opportunitie s do match the educ ation programme .

Admini stration come s into the picture everywhere . Administration whether it come s under the old colonial regime , or with the new political power c arrie s a heavy re sponsibility. As I listened to Mr . Kaad I detected a slightly defens ive note in his remarks . This was quite unnec e s s ary, becaus e he put the problem fac ed by the Administration ve ry well, but not as forc ibly as he could have put it . He made a ple a for recognition that coordination must be a reality. He made the point that you need finance . I suggest to him that often he may have enough financ e, but not the real resourc e s to go with it . It is no good allocating finance to education if you have not the teachers to employ. It may be pos sible to get financ e for a university but you have to have teachers to staff it . Whilst the que stion of priorities is extremely important, the supply of real resource s i s no les s important .

I come back to remind myself that this notion of co­ordination of effort, of recognising that the society is in transition, started with an e s s ay on malnutrition and peanuts , and that in the course of the discussion protein and peanuts got lost . But I return to it because health happens to be an operative factor as well as a resultant, and thus i s one of the contributing factors to progre s s in the Territory. I have to bow to medical opinion but I am not at all sure that the state of health is not so irrelevant to economic well-being as has been suggested . Even if i t were not directly relevant , I am sure it is relevant to the state of mind of people who are expected to jump right into nationhood . I rather expect that the succ ess or otherwise of the loc al medical office r will be a gre ate r factor in

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the educational field than we are led to believe . I do not see how the local health authority, from the me dic al orderlies to the regional medic al officer, c an be indiffe rent to the cases of mal­nutrition seen in the are a . It i s not reasonable to sugge st that the health programme c an be stood aside for a time . It may be given a lower priority but let us be c le ar what that me ans . It means that the health programme will get l e s s of any additional money, perhaps a slight reduction in the budget so that something els e c an be slightly built up . I conclude with the suggestion that the idea implicit in the t itle of this programme turns out to be a problem that cannot be dealt with except as part of a total co­ordinated programme that attempts to recognise the forc es of change . We must s e e health as part of the total p rogramme from Port Moresby to the Chimbu - and indeed from Canberra to Port Moresby. On your behalf I would like to thank all the contributors including thos e who spoke from the floor .

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